Monday had to be the hottest day of the season and we haven’t reached August which is commonly referred to as the Dog Days of Summer.
I dialed the number for time and temperature at Clarksdale Monday where I have spent four sweltering summers since I left Stuttgart in November 2004.
“99 degrees,” the recording stated.
Ugh!
Betty Adams came in from her usual afternoon checks on fire and police huffing and puffing.
“That heat will knock you down,” Betty said, She has labored longer than many of the Daily World staff put together with 45 years.
That’s a lot of miserably hot summers. Winters are less of a problem since the cold weather is not like those in the Midwest and Northeast.
Can it be any hotter anywhere else than the Delta?
Yes. Just ask some of those soldiers who have spent at least one tour of duty in Iraq since President Bush began the deployment of troops in 2003.
There was one young man (the name escapes me) in his early 20s from Humphrey, a small community that straddles Arkansas and Jefferson counties, whom I met during a brief trip back home in 2004.
When asked about the summers in Iraq, he replied: “They’re nuclear hot.”
Sometimes I wonder how we endured those wretchedly hot summer days – and nights – back in the 1950s when all we had to keep cool by were ceiling and box fans.
My maternal grandparents had a screened-in porch that provided a cross breeze to give us some relief. Lemonade never tasted so good.
My grandfather preferred his Budweisers kept chilled down in the frig.
Only those who could afford them had air conditioned cars.
My family got its first air condition in the early 1960s.
I can still remember 1954. It was an off-year in between President Dwight Eisenhower’s two terms.
There was plenty of political hot air in Arkansas with Oral Faubus stumping for governor and other statewide officeholders and candidates canvassing the state for votes.
Mount Nebo was then to a larger extent that today a haven for politicians to spread their political propganda and feed the masses.
That hardly compared to Jesus Christ’s spreading the Gospel while feeding the masses on bread and fishes.
Politicos handed out little paper fans to whip up a breeze. They doubled nicely as flyswatters. Wherever there was food the flies were sure to hover.
I still can’t stand watermelon today because it conjures up memories of the freshly-sliced fruit lying on picnic tables in Little Rock on a hot mid-summer day.
I told momma there were so many damned flies landing on the melons it was hard to tell the flies from the seeds.
Candidates wore straw hats, threw their coats over one shoulder and rolled up the sleeves on their starched white shirts.
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Monday had to be the hottest day of the season and we haven’t reached August which is commonly referred to as the Dog Days of Summer.
I dialed the number for time and temperature at Clarksdale Monday where I have spent four sweltering summers since I left Stuttgart in November 2004.
“99 degrees,” the recording stated.
Ugh!
Betty Adams came in from her usual afternoon checks on fire and police huffing and puffing.
“That heat will knock you down,” Betty said, She has labored longer than many of the Daily World staff put together with 45 years.
That’s a lot of miserably hot summers. Winters are less of a problem since the cold weather is not like those in the Midwest and Northeast.
Can it be any hotter anywhere else than the Delta?
Yes. Just ask some of those soldiers who have spent at least one tour of duty in Iraq since President Bush began the deployment of troops in 2003.
There was one young man (the name escapes me) in his early 20s from Humphrey, a small community that straddles Arkansas and Jefferson counties, whom I met during a brief trip back home in 2004.
When asked about the summers in Iraq, he replied: “They’re nuclear hot.”
Sometimes I wonder how we endured those wretchedly hot summer days – and nights – back in the 1950s when all we had to keep cool by were ceiling and box fans.
My maternal grandparents had a screened-in porch that provided a cross breeze to give us some relief. Lemonade never tasted so good.
My grandfather preferred his Budweisers kept chilled down in the frig.
Only those who could afford them had air conditioned cars.
My family got its first air condition in the early 1960s.
I can still remember 1954. It was an off-year in between President Dwight Eisenhower’s two terms.
There was plenty of political hot air in Arkansas with Oral Faubus stumping for governor and other statewide officeholders and candidates canvassing the state for votes.
Mount Nebo was then to a larger extent that today a haven for politicians to spread their political propganda and feed the masses.
That hardly compared to Jesus Christ’s spreading the Gospel while feeding the masses on bread and fishes.
Politicos handed out little paper fans to whip up a breeze. They doubled nicely as flyswatters. Wherever there was food the flies were sure to hover.
I still can’t stand watermelon today because it conjures up memories of the freshly-sliced fruit lying on picnic tables in Little Rock on a hot mid-summer day.
I told momma there were so many damned flies landing on the melons it was hard to tell the flies from the seeds.
Candidates wore straw hats, threw their coats over one shoulder and rolled up the sleeves on their starched white shirts.
