Summertime, and the living is...HOT!

I hereby submit that there should be a law that forces summer to end when school begins. It's going to be 112 in Phoenix today. It's too hot for kids to be allowed outside for recess! That seems downright un-American to me. Many Phoenix area schools started the first week of August. All civilized people know that school should begin after Labor Day.

It will still be plenty warm in September, but it won't be hotter than the hinges of...heck like it is now. People who have lived in Arizona for any length of time like to boast, "But it's a dry heat!" I admit that dry is better than humid - who needs their glasses fogging up when they get out of their car?

My niece was married in Oklahoma - outdoors - in July! I could really have used some dry heat then. Can you say m-i-s-e-r-a-b-l-e?

The funny thing is, I was born and raised in Southern California where it got nice and toasty in the summer. I can remember seeing a thermometer downtown registering 118 degrees. Our home didn't have air-conditioning, but I don't remember being bothered by the heat then.

I lived in Oregon for a number of years. Summer would come one day when the sun came out and the temperature rose to 60 or -rarely - 70. People would run around in shorts and tank tops just like they had good sense. Then that day would end and the rain would continue for the next 364 days.

Moving from the Pacific Northwest to the Desert Southwest was quite an experience, especially because we moved at the end of July and our car air-conditioner conked out halfway through the California desert. We survived - barely - and I've lived here for a very long time.

I had the misfortune to experience Phoenix's hottest day ever the hard way. I was a newspaper reporter and responded to an accident scene. I was doing fine, taking photos and talking to the emergency crews while we waited for an air-evac helicopter. Once the victim had been airlifted, I suddenly noticed that it was very warm. I started to wobble a little and a paramedic immediately gave me some water and walked me to my car. I stopped at a nearby convenience store and bought two large cups of ice water. I poured one over my head (it felt so good!) and drank the other, narrowly avoiding a heat stroke. I later learned that, at 122 degrees, it was  a Phoenix record.

Too bad no one told me it was too hot to play outside!