Jill's Journal: It's not the heat, it's the humidity
“Hot enough for you?”
That’s a silly question to ask of anyone when the mercury is tilting past the 90-degree mark in June.
“It’s not the heat, so much as it is the humidity,” is typically my answer. And from time to time, it’s probably your response, too.
Humidity. It’s an eight-letter word that can make even the most cold-hearted person sweat profusely.
I well remember the heat – and the humidity – of the 70s. Our family lived in a two-story, three-bedroom, one-bath rental. It lacked any sort of air conditioning, that was, until my folks bought a window unit. The unit – tucked into one of the dining room windows – had the ability to crank out enough cold air to keep the main floor cool, of course with a fan or two directing it to the living room and kitchen.
As for the second-story bedrooms, we relied on fans in the windows, essentially pulling hot air from the outside to blow that same hot air directly at us.
I recall one heatwave where my dad hauled all of our mattresses from our beds downstair. I looked at it as a family slumber party. My dad, well, he was just trying to keep cool.
That was the one – and only time that I can remember having a family “slumber party.”
Other ways we kept cool in the dog days of summer back then was running through the sprinkler. That, however, lasted as long as one of the neighborhood moms would allow.
The Henslin’s freezer in the garage – filled with an assortment of ice cream treats and popsicles of any kind of flavor – was just a few blocks away, and if we were lucky enough to scrounge up a dime or two, you can bet a visit to the Henslin home was in order.
We also had the ability to claim refuge from summer’s braising temperatures at the simple cost of a dime. That was the fee to board a hot and sweaty school bus filled with hot and sweaty kids en route to Long Lake.
As the calendar turned to July this week, I took note that we haven’t had a whole lot of those “hot enough for you” kind of days yet this summer. While I detest humidity, a bit of sunshine that would necessitate a hot and sweaty bus ride to the lake, a stop by Henslin’s garage or even a run through the sprinkler, would sure be a treat before the school bells start ringing.
