Last Thursday one of my supervisors from the Review-Journal and I had our quarterly breakfast/lunch to discuss how the job and newspaper are going.
I told her that I was very happy that “summer” is almost over and that I’m not sure how many more Southern Nevada summers I can take. Why is it that summers seem tougher to handle the older we get?
I’m not exactly the poster child for Coppertone tans, so I’m not a fan of being outside in 110-degree weather, where even your teeth seem to sweat.
I mentioned to her that similar to how people in the Pacific Northwest get seasonal depression because of the amount of rain, I think I suffered some of that this summer, especially July, which seemed hotter than normal. Needless to say, that was not in my Welcome Back to Boulder City brochure.
It is amusing how people, including myself, seem shocked by the heat each summer in the desert. As I mentioned, maybe that’s because as we age, it just seems hotter. The same way it seems as though a year is about 220 days as we age. That just means summer gets here even faster.
I remember growing up in Boulder City as a kid. Before I got my driver’s license, like most, I rode my bike everywhere and I never remember hydrating, other than drinking out of the garden hose, which had that warm rubber flavor. I’d ride my bike to 7-11 to get a Slurpee or maybe some baseball cards or to Thrifty to get a scoop or two of ice cream at 15 cents apiece.
As kids we’d play out in the desert with our only sense of time being when the street lights came on in your neighborhood and you knew it was time to go home. At this point, I feel like I’m narrating an episode of “The Wonder Years.”
Maybe as adults we need to step back to when we were kids to find ways to beat the summer heat. I say we pick a house and everyone come over and we run through the sprinklers. I’ll bring the Kool-Aid. Or better yet, dust off the Slip ‘n’ Slide and hope that none of us break a hip.
We’re just two weeks or so away from the “ber” months, not to be confused with “brrrr.” But still, one step closer to the holidays, pumpkin-spiced everything and Flannel Fridays.
This weekend I will be in Minnesota visiting a dear friend. She and I will be going to the state fair. The weekend after that, I’m attending a family reunion of sorts in Oregon. I’ve been checking the temperatures of both. They’re about 20 degrees cooler than here and no mention of sweaty teeth. I’m all in favor of that.
Stay hydrated, my friends.