The weather has gone beyond hot this summer – at least for me. Now I do not want to start a conversation about global warming. I will leave that to the “experts” – may their tribe become more expert so that the absolute truth be made known one way or the other so no one can quibble about it. Thus, this is why I say the purpose of this missive is not engage discussion on a heated matter. Rather, it is one that simply allows me to complain about the weather – which is the right of all Americans. It is not spelled out in the constitution, but it is there nevertheless.
I grew up in Pennsylvania and when the temperature rose above 70 degrees, I considered it hot. I was not and am still not a person who loves hot weather. The Blonde in the house who also grew up in Pennsylvania is a lover of warm weather. Even though we grew up in the same general climate, we have different views. Mine may have been skewed since in one of the houses we lived in when I grew up had an unfinished attic. Guess whose bedroom was in the unfinished attic? I know that probably no matter where you grew up, if you slept in an unfinished attic in the summertime, you are most likely not a hot weather fan.
The Blonde in the house did not sleep in an unfinished attic. However, what she recalls is the “icy” cold weather in Pittsburgh. I grew up about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh and went to college there. I had a number of classmates and fraternity brothers who also grew up in Pittsburgh, but you should have heard them complain about how much colder in was in Greenville, Pa. than in Pittsburgh. They did not know how hot it was in Greenville in the summer as most of them went home between their college years. None of them had to sleep in an unfinished attic either!
When I was in graduate school my parents and my sister moved to the St. Petersburg area. Since my sister was a sweet little girl at the time, she never had to sleep in the unfinished attic, so I guess she did not mind the move. Although I find that hard to believe as my Dad did not want to put air conditioning in the house he bought. He claimed that the breeze from the Gulf was enough. We normally visited them at a time that was not in the real summer, but even then I did not find any great breeze that cooled me.
Consequently, I vowed a mighty vow that I would never live in Florida and suffer from the all-pervasive heat. Then, the unexpected happened I was offered a job in Deerfield Beach, Florida. So in 1990 we moved, and I discovered it was hot. I had not been wrong. Then in 1994 we moved to Pensacola. It was hot there, but the winters got what The Blonde considered to be quite cold. In fact, she would complain that Pensacola was not in Florida because it got too cold. Heck once in the six years we lived there we had some snowflakes. Such excitement, you never did see. I almost had to give everybody the day off so they could get home and not skid into something. We did not even have any snow plows so it could have been a bad thing – at least I was so told.
In 2000 I retired. We had looked in North Carolina where I assumed it would not be so hot for a good retirement community. We then happened upon The Villages, and I figured that the benefits might outweigh the weather. One thing that did help was that the homes here did not have any unfinished attics – at least which could be used as a bedroom. So we moved here and have enjoyed the seventeen years despite the miserable heat of summer. Thus, despite my best intentions I have been a Floridian for a total of 27 years, and it has been good.
I will close with one comment – it has been hotter than Hades this July! Please recall that it is my right as an American to complain about the weather!
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages.