Musings Of A New Southern Man

The temperature today was 93 and the humidity was about 70 percent at midmorning. It's the kind of day they warn you about when you move to the South. Just bear up under the conditions, veteran Southerners told me. I bear up nicely, at least on my best days. What makes this return to the Southern sweatbox is that we had three days of absolutely beautiful weather before this latest blast hit. I mean, it was chamber of commerce weather. Temperatures were in the low 80s, nighttime lows went to the low 60s, and the humidity was less than 50 percent. That's as good as it gets in August. We have an attic fan that goes unused during a large part of the summer because the humidity is so taxing. That attic fan was on in the morning for those three glorious days. Cool air swept through open doors and windows. We basked in the beauty of the day. I know my old Colorado friends would be running for their dehumidifiers if the humidity hit 45 percent, but this weather and Colorado's hav

There is nothing particularly Southern in this post, although Southerners are as boxed in by this concept as folks from Up North or Out West. It regulates our existences. It marks where we are, have been, and will be. It might even determine who we are if we allow it that much power. Time. Deb and I have a calendar on a shelf in our great room. It has metal rectangles for every day, date, and month. We follow the passage of time in 24-hour increments. There is a minor ritual, usually in the early morning as one of us interrupts our coffee drinking, in which the proper metal rectangles are put in place. What happens when you do that daily ritual? The rush of time becomes apparent. The recent transition to August replaces the one for July, which takes the place of June, which seems as if it was only yesterday. 2018 becomes the latest little box in which we exist, just as 2017 is, and 1992, 1976, and so on. Time is no longer a tame friend but a relentless orderer of things, even a t