Humidity

A few days ago I kvetched about the humidity. Let me withdraw my complaint.

I’ve really been thinking about this. Sure, before air conditioning… or at least before air conditioning in my life, summer was brutal. Now, summer is just basically not winter – and that’s good!

I remember growing up in our fifth floor apartment in Flushing. The windows were wide open. We were on the flight path to La Guardia Airport.

Back in those days they were prop planes, mostly four engine jobs, flying into LGA. They were low and slow and very loud. You couldn’t talk, couldn’t speak. The building vibrated to the drone of the engines. All you could do was wait them out – one after the other after the other.

That was also in the pre-cable era. As the planes flew by, TV reception flew away.

After I left college, I lived in Florida in the early-70s. I was making $130 per week, living without air conditioning in a little walk up apartment in Lake Worth. What was I thinking? From May to October it was criminally brutal.

Back to today.

I know I’m lucky because for the most part, heat and humidity are optional in my life. I can go out or I can live my entire life hermetically sealed.

When I drive, the weather is no problem – part of the reason summer shines above winter. But maybe it has to do with the connection my psyche has with the warm weather months.

Warm and sticky meant no school. Warm and sticky meant not worrying about when I woke up. Warm and sticky meant a life free of responsibility.

I respond to warm and sticky as Pavlov’s dogs responded to that damn bell. It’s beyond my control and I’m not fighting it.

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