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Years ago, Mary Lou and I took our children on our first trip to Montreat, North Carolina.  It was a paradise hidden in the mountains of western North Carolina.  Many of the homes were built at the turn of the past century.  They had large windows, high ceilings, and big porches.  In addition to their charm, most were built to enjoy the moderate temperatures up in the mountains without any need for air conditioning.

On our visit that area experienced a record heat wave.  We visited every hardware and grocery store looking for portable fans.  It was like searching for a generator after a hurricane.  None were to be found.

After a second restless night of trying to sleep in the unseasonable heat I found myself poking around in the old, dark basement.  As luck would have it, I found an ancient oscillating fan with almost no guard protecting the blades.  I quietly took the fan up into our room rationalizing that it would be too dangerous for our children to sleep in a room with unprotected fan blades.  It was the best night of sleep I had in a week.

I recently heard the phrase describing the heat as “hot as a July station wagon”  I traveled a lot with my parents as a child, mostly in station wagons.  The windows were down, and, in some cases, the front doors had window vents that forced the air back into the vehicle.  That was fine unless the air was hot, and the speed was slow.

No one I know is going to dispute the very hot temperatures that we are experiencing these days.  As a boy I never heard about a “heat dome” or global warming.  I harvested watermelons and hoed weeds in the peanut fields before there were air-conditioned tractors, or trucks for that matter.

In my mind, it was hot back in that day, but not as hot as it is now.  Was I more accustomed to the heat?   Has all the air-conditioning 24 hours a day made me more sensitive to heat when I step outside?  Is the humidity worse now or has it always been so sticky in the deep south?

At least the afternoon thunderstorms have made their way into the calendar of 90 plus degree days.  Of course, that water in the atmosphere makes the dreaded heat index soar well above 100.  Lately that has been day after day after day.

I do not really recall just how hot it was in a station wagon in July when I was growing up.  I know that it seems a lot hotter now, despite air-conditioned houses, cars, restaurants, stores and everywhere else you have to go.

In any case, I found out just how hot it could be this past week at Compass Lake with my family.   The heat index hovered near 110 degrees.  The fans on the dock only pushed around more hot air.  Yet, because of my recent hip replacement, I could not swim in the lake.  No jumping into the cool spring water to cool off.  It was frustrating a sit all day looking at everyone else in the water.

This reminds me of the words many of us uttered when the coldest temperature of last winter brought chills to our spines.   “I cannot wait for summer”, many said.  Be careful what you wish for.

In the natural cycle of things, this too shall pass.  Comforting words to hold in the back of our minds as we sweat through another summer, realizing that the dog days are yet to come.