Goodbye August
Right now my rearview mirror is filling with August on its way out.
As months go, hasn’t it been a doozy?
Normally I kind of like August, at least in Houston where it cuts traffic inside the Loop to about half the usual density. Makes getting around so much easier—the way it used to be.
And, except for the occasional hurricane, August is the most reliable month where Texas weather is concerned. You know exactly what it will be. Hot. The only variability will be indoors, depending uponAC and the electrical grid.
This year, however, it was HOTTER—climbing past expectation day after day. The heat surged toward toxic daily hitting 103, 105, 107. A friend from Glen Rose recorded 115 this week. A Fayette County friend’s otherwise healthy old dog died.
Older residents of our community found themselves strategizing a trip to the supermarket. Those large parking lots became hazardous, sources of heat exhaustion and worse, should one fall.
Others of us confined ourselves voluntarily to our homes for most of the daylight hours, creating unhappy echoes of pandemic isolation during those long months of 2020-21.
Staying inside has its consequences, too. Recent reports describe an uptick in Covid cases, a new subvariant called Eris. A new vaccine is expected in September.
Aggressive drivers seemed to proliferate this August. Have you noticed? Pickup trucks hurtled along county roads too narrow and potholed for speed, ignoring blind corners. You can’t take a ninety-degree turn on a gravel road at speed without cutting into the oncoming lane. (I barely avoided two head-on collisions near Winedale in the past two weeks, both blind corners.)
I’m guessing that the intolerable temperatures we sustain when we get into our sun-baked vehicles contributes to that urge for extra speed. Just as though we could outrun the misery.
And we can’t, can we?
Some of our neighboring county roads are being repaired— but what a time to do it! Not only do the delays and altered surfaces add frustration to already beleaguered residents. But heavy labor in such heat risks the health of workers. I feel sure the decisions to go ahead weren’t made without consideration, but perhaps they were scheduled before anyone anticipated the intensity of August heat.
Have I mentioned wildfires? I hate to say that word. I hate to think that word. No one will forget 2011 and the Bastrop devastation, among others. As the Bastrop fire back then demonstrates, September can be difficult, too.
Older residents of our county can remember when going to a nighttime football game in September meant wearing a sweater. Did we notice exactly when that became unnecessary?
In the 1980’s we could rely on October for the best weather of the year in Texas. Pellucid air that by itself could elevate the spirit.
A few years ago we began to shift our expectations. November became our October.
And while September might have the gentle sloping yellow light that we associate with autumn, it would often feel as hot as August. Football games, football and cheerleading practice, band practice— our high school and college rituals still follow the time-honored calendar.
This year I think we’re all praying that if it must be hot, September will mimic the August heat of long years past and not the new, hotter present.
Whoever you think controls the weather, whatever belief structure gives you comfort, it does seem pretty obvious to me that, as NASA’s administrator put it recently, “Mother Nature is sending us a message.”
If only she’d send us an answer.
Readers can contact Hale at bfhale2017@gmail.com