Facing The Heat
It’s hot.
Sunday it was 109 degrees here in La Grange.
Some people might say it’s never been hotter.
But I know better.
My parents didn’t get air conditioning until after I graduated high school, so even if the temperature gauge might not say so, the summers of my youth felt hotter.
Back then, even with the windows open and the fans blowing inside the house, being outside was the place to be.
We’d had water fights with the hose or set up a sprinkler or a slip-and-slide.
I still have a scar on my knee from when we didn’t check under the slip-and-slide for rocks some 35 years ago.
We’d beg my mom to take us to the La Grange city swimming pool, which back in those days had two slides and a low diving board and a high diving board. It was a wonderland. My kids can’t believe it used to have all those amenities.
After swimming, we’d run over to the playground equipment at Kruschel Park hoping our swim suits were still wet enough to minimize the sting of the metal playsets that were out in the sun, and would burn you if your bare skin touched them.
Once or twice a summer we’d talk her into taking us to the swimming pool at Wolters Park in Schulenburg, for variety’s sake. I loved that metal water slide that was still there the last time we took our kids.
My wife and I actually had our rehearsal dinner for our wedding at the Wolters Park swimming pool of all places. After rehearsal at the High Hill Church 19 years ago now, my parents bought pizza and we rented out the pool and had about 50 people there on a Friday night in July, and it was awesome.
One summer my brother and I dragged an old bathtub like a quarter mile from an old dump through a pasture and to our house with grand designs of having our own swimming pool. It wasn’t nearly as fun as we envisioned.
When I was a kid, we had a hammock that was hung in the shade between two trees in our yard, and I swear I spent half of some summers reading in that hammock.
My fondness for hammocks remains. We have two now.
Those summers of my childhood, any excuse to go into town was a good one.
We loved going to the library, and lingered extra long picking out books in the cool AC.
Even going grocery shopping with our mom was a treat during the summer. And we’d beg for sodas and popsicles or Icee pops.
When we were unsuccessful in our pleas we had to get more creative.
We’d swipe handfuls of dewberries from the freezer as snacks.
We’d scrape the ice from the walls of our chest freezer and sprinkle Tang (that old orange drink mix) or Country Time Lemonade mix on the ice to make snow cones.
We’d also drink the heck out of that sweetened instant tea mix.
We’d linger at the refrigerator door pretending to be looking for something to eat, but really just enjoying the cold inside.
Once a summer we’d usually go to Galveston for a few days, where the sea breeze and a hotel room provided relief.
Back in La Grange the nights felt almost as hot as the days. With the windows open, the whirring sounds of the box fan by your bed had to compete with the buzz of crickets and frogs and cicadas outside.
Nowadays, with everything air conditioned, how long are we actually out in the heat? But we complain about it more.
Yes, Summer felt hotter back then.
It was all around us, 24 hours a day – but I still never wanted it to end.