We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.
As I write this on Monday morning, my calendar says we have a couple of weeks remaining before summer. My thermometer, however, begs to differ. The high today in Fort Worth is supposed to be 97 degrees. Not that unusual. This is what we live with.
What freaks me out is that when I left the house a little after five this morning for my walk the temperature was 78 degrees. What is up with that?
And that’s not the worst of it. 78 degrees is livable, especially with a bit of wind to temper it. What makes this even worse is that it’s a precursor of July and August, when the overnight lows can be 83 to 85 degrees. That’s cruel and unusual punishment.
I need to spend my summer visiting people like Leanne Shirtliffe in Calgary, Alberta, or Natalie Hartford in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Bet they never have overnight lows of 85 degrees.
Or how about Angela Orlowski-Peart or Karlene Petitt or some of the others who live around Puget Sound? They couldn’t possibly have this kind of summer.
Only problem is, I might take a heat wave with me and lose their friendships from screwing up their weather. I’ve done that before.
Several years ago my wife and I went on an Alaska cruise with a ten-day land tour added. In Juneau, Skagway, Whitehorse and Dawson, the temperatures were in the high nineties—and nothing is air conditioned. We sweltered in our hotel rooms at night waiting for it to cool off. Even Eagle, Alaska, was hot.
See what I mean?
In a few weeks we’re going on a vacation, and we’re going to stay one night in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The plan is to get together with Jess Witkins for supper or breakfast. What if we take one of our 105 degree days with us? Will she even meet us? Guess we’ll have to take a chance on that.
Maybe I need to have a summer house somewhere like Banff or Jasper. I’m not sure they’ve ever seen a 90 degree day. We were in Lake Louise some years ago when the 55-degree temperature was exactly half of the 110 degrees Fort Worth was suffering. At least if I took a heat wave with me to these places I don’t know anyone who’d get mad at me over it.
Can you tell I’m just a tiny bit jealous of people who don’t have to put up with our kind of summer? Well, I guess in fairness, people like those mentioned above or Renee Schuls-Jacobson and Marcia Richards in Upstate New York would like to trade winters with me. I’m sure my niece in Minot, North Dakota, would. Maybe it all averages out in the long run. Maybe I should shut up and just be glad God allowed me to be a Texan.
What about your weather? Long, cold winters or unbearable summers? To twist Mark Twain’s words a bit, we can’t do anything about it, but we can sure bitch complain talk about it. Tell us what you think.
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David N. Walker is a Christian father and grandfather, a grounded pilot and a near-scratch golfer who had to give up the game because of shoulder problems. A graduate of Duke University, he spent 42 years as a health insurance agent. Most of that career was spent in Texas, but for a few years he traveled many other states. He started writing about 20 years ago, and has six unpublished novels to use as primers on how NOT to write fiction. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his non-fiction Christian Chicken Soup: Godly Thoughts and Inspiration from the Inbox and starting his new fiction work—a series of novellas set during the period from 1860 to 1880.
Contact me at davwalktx@yahoo.com or tweet me at @davidnwalkertx
David N Walker 
The joke in Maryland is that “if you don’t like the weather, stick around, it’ll change.” That’s partially true, but we do get long stretches of hot, muggy, swampy weather in the summers where the highs top out in the 90s, and usually even a few days in the 100s. We hit 98 the other day and I bumped into my storm door and got a small burn mark on my arm, and knew summer was truly here. Our winters are somewhat mild, but we get cold stretches too, and the occasional blizzard. I adore fall and spring here, and would never want to move somewhere where I couldn’t experience the drastic seasons, but I wouldn’t mind being rich enough to have a “getaway home” somewhere that stays cool when the worst of summer rolls in : )!
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Keep writing, Pam. Maybe you’ll provide yourself that opportunity.
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Sorry I missed this last week! YES! YES! YES! I will trade winters with you! 160″ is way too much snow! I’ll ship you some this winter – keep in your freezer til summer and you and your wife can have a snowball fight in July next year! 🙂
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What I need is a perpetual moderate zone–a home in a place where it never gets above, let’s say, 70 degrees. And fabulously snowy (but not blizzarding) winters. I am a person who loves to swaddle–give me a warm sweater or a downy blanket any day of the year and I’ll be at peace.
… Which is all my nice way of saying summer, particularly the balmy, humid, breathless summers of Pennsylvania, are going to kill me.
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Come try a Texas summer. It’ll make you love your Pennsylvania summers.
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I would love your kind of summer! 97 sounds delicious. Especially since I have air-conditioning in my house. In Seattle? You bet. But… yesterday the only place that was colder than Seattle was Siberia. Brrrr.
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Why can’t we do some trading now and then, Karlene?
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Would love to. Need sunshine. 🙂
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Understand your area almost always needs sunshine, Karlene – just like most of Texas could always use some of your rain. Oh, well.
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LOL. And today we’ve had rain! Of course, I used to always be able to talk about the weather until I moved to FW. Now I just gloat about it to my still damp UK friends 🙂
Cheers!
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Yes, I suppose most of them would love a little Texas summer, Nigel.
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Yeah, that counts, David. Now … just consider heading farther west.
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Farther than Puget Sound?
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Well, now that you have wounded me by not even thinking of coming to
Spokane to escape the heat …. I’ll invite you anyway. We need you to bring us some warmth. The forecast for the rest of June is rain and highs in the 60’s and 70’s. I don’t want the Texas heat, please, but a run of 80’s to low 90’s would help our garden and our spirits.
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Sorry you were wounded, Sis. I was listing writing friends, but I did mention one of your granddaughters. Does that count?
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