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In the same way that a forecast for a major snow storm fills me with anticipation, the news that a heat wave was en route last week triggered a similar excitement.
Obviously, the extreme heat is worrisome, especially if you do not have access to air conditioning, or in the shade, and if you have elderly family members.
The heat is also more worrying in a city where all this concrete seems to increase the effect even further. The most striking example is perhaps the frying of eggs on the sidewalk. By the way, I looked at it and it takes a temperature of 158 degrees Fahrenheit to fry an egg properly, and sidewalks do not come close to that temperature. You could always fry one on the sidewalk, but, apart from your hygiene concerns, it would take some time before it's edible, even longer if you like yours, as I do. do.
But there is something timeless, atavistic in the notion of summer heat waves. My father, who had stayed in New York and loved the heat, was writing us letters about the hot weather and the luck we had to be in the mountains or at the beach.
Part of the look of a good path of warmth, I suspect, is that, like a good snowstorm, it gets you out of yourself. This forces you to focus on larger forces. It reminds you that in a world where we believe more and more that humanity is the mistress of its own destiny, we are just actors in a much larger and more majestic production.
At the moment this commentary talks about the temperatures One expects to have retreated in the eighties only. But while I was writing these words, we were eager to spend a few days flirting with a hundred degrees and several others in the bottom period in the mid-90s.
So, what is it that I did last Saturday? Transparent brush. There was a spot of horror behind the house and I badumed it would be too hot for heavy work, or any job, for the foreseeable future.
Consider this as the equivalent of going to the supermarket before a hurricane or a major snowstorm. Fear or at least anxiety can be a contributing factor. But there is also a celebratory element about being wrapped.
As I said, it moves us back from one moment to the next when we were not masters of the universe
. attitude and relationship with heat. A few years ago, I reminded Kenneth Jackson, a professor at Columbia University and a prominent New York historian, those letters from my father where he painted New York as a stuffy and desert cauldron in the summer of 19659010. exaggerated; he could have been happier only when the rest of the family left the city and that he had our apartment and the city for himself.
But Professor Jackson pointed out that everything has changed with the advent of air conditioning. Escape from the city to the mountains or the beach has suddenly become a recreational choice rather than a compelling necessity.
Perhaps no one has captured this feeling of urban lethargy better than EB White in his famous essay, "Here is New York," written during a heat wave during the stifling summer of 1949
"On anyone who desires such strange prizes," he begins, "New York will grant the gift of"
While he was talking about the city in general, and to n & # 39; No matter what time of year, one can only think that his opinions were influenced by the fact that, as he wrote, "I am sitting in a sweltering hotel room in the 90 degree heat, halfway to an airwell, in the city center. "
The heat has a way of isolating and isolating.I did not indiscrete, knowing that the misery of a heat index of one hundred degrees is shared by all creatures
Indeed, at the advent of this heat wave, I was wondering if birds and other animals intensely as we do.If they fly only when needed or take a break from digging or striker holes. lettuce in my raised beds
I like to think that they do it.We are all in the same boat.We could be agree, if not on a lot of d & # 39; others, that shadow and a pond or stream of water to overwhelm us, is a heavenly thing.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who splits his time between New York and Columbia County. can be found on ralphgardner.com
The opinions expressed by the commentators are solely those of They do not necessarily reflect the point of view of this station or its management.
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