In the Summer, in the City…

DW Dalrymple

DW is an ex-mountaineer now residing in the Palmetto State, a former political hack/public servant, aspiring beach bum and alleged rock-n-roll savant. Forever a student of the School of Life. You can find him on Twitter @BIG_DWD

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14 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    Hot town, A/C is sexist
    Thinkin’ ’bout going to IHOP for breakfastReport

  2. dragonfrog says:

    I haven’t heard that song in a while. If the radio stations here played it people might get annoyed – we’re having a cool and very rainy summer so far. Not my very favourite but I’ll take out over forest fire smoke.Report

  3. fillyjonk says:

    Everybody who complains about AC being sexist is being ageist. I’m a menopausal woman and I ADORE AC.

    Then again: even when I was younger I hated being hot and 70-72 F would be my preferred temperature.

    And yes, humidity is the killer. we had a day of unusually high humidity for summer (dewpoint in the upper 70s) and I swear I thought I was going to die, and I was only walking from my car to my house or my workplace. And it was very hard for the air conditioner to keep up with the temperature. (In the end I just set it on 80 and installed the portable window unit I have in my bedroom. Didn’t want to risk burning up the whole-house unit)Report

  4. Michael Cain says:

    Elevation also makes a difference. Thin air at altitude just doesn’t have the same “hug you and not let go” misery that hot humid air does at lower elevations. Also, there’s usually a break at night because of radiative cooling. Last night was unusual — there were enough clouds that it stayed warm most of the night. Some monsoon moisture flowing through for the next couple of days, moderating the high temp and giving us a chance for some thunderstorms.Report

  5. fillyjonk says:

    Also lack of breeze. What made Monday and Tuesday here so awful was that on top of it being hot and unusually humid, there was ZERO air movement. Later on in the week it was still hot and humid but there was a breeze and that made it slightly more tolerable.

    Also a big difference about here from other places I’ve lived is that in the summer, it often does not cool off at night. We often have nights where the low temperature is in the lower 80s F and you just can’t recover from the body stress of heat when it’s still that hot overnight.Report

  6. Brandon Berg says:

    I got a 1600 on my SAT the first year after the renorming that changed a 1600 from a 99.99th-percentile score to a 99.9th-percentile score. The reality of this hadn’t really filtered down to the unwashed masses, and nobody in my family has gone to college before, so when people told me I’d be able to get into any school I wanted to, I said, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” and applied to three very selective schools and nothing else.

    By the time I got my third rejection letter, it was very late in the application cycle, and not many selective schools had openings left. Fortunately, Georgia Tech still had an opening, but only for students starting in the summer term.

    And thus I found myself in Atlanta in late June. A week later, the air conditioning in my dormitory broke down, and stayed that way for a solid week. I was very careful to arrange not to be in Atlanta the next summer.

    I can’t imagine having to do hard labor in a Southern summer, though. My hat goes off to you.Report

    • DW Dalrymple in reply to Brandon Berg says:

      Thanks, it was hot Brandon but I was young, still was “invincible” so I made it through. There’s hotter places out there where people are roasting right now to make a buck or two. My hat’s off to them. They know who they are.Report

  7. Luckily I only had to pass through there, never staying more than a few days, but Al Udeid in Qatar is about the hottest I’ve personally enjoyed, and I’ve spent a good chunk of my life in Middle East, North Africa, and lived in Las Vegas for a spell. The poor troops stationed there would take 4-5 tshirts to work with them and just periodically change, since there was nothing you could do for the heat and sweat and humidity of that place. You get downrange to Iraq the low triple digits seems down right autumnal in comparison.Report

    • DW Dalrymple in reply to Andrew Donaldson says:

      The troops, I can’t even fathom the heat you all had to deal with along with carrying out your duty. On my end, working the lines we’d sweat buckets. I’d put wet bandanas in the freezer to take out and wear through the shift. Gave a new meaning to “brain freeze.” You hoped for a steady runner so you didn’t have to move through changeovers. Night turn would provide some relief. We used to joke that guys in prison weren’t subjected to this kind of heat, much less working night turn…I feel very fortunate those days are in my rear view.Report

  8. aaron david says:

    Whew… finally got to the 80’s here.

    It had been hovering in the ’70s for too long this summer! Though with the rain, it was a bit muggy…Report

  9. Mike Dwyer says:

    I worked several summers in non-air-conditioned warehouses but the hottest work I have ever done was week-long archaeological survey in Perryville, KY. This was the site of the largest Civil War battle in KY and there was an old tobacco field near the site that was going to be paved over for a parking lot. So we dug about 100 shovel probes with hand augers and shovels to make sure there were no archaeological deposits. This was late July, not a stitch of shade and long before I figured out that I should wear sunscreen and drink lots of water. I’m probably lucky I didn’t end up in the hospital. God, it was awful and we didn’t find a single brass button or mini ball.

    I’m also happy to report I survived 2 rounds of disc golf with a 110 heat index today. Drank close to two gallons of water and still felt parched but hey, sports. Just about ready for autumn.Report

  10. LeeEsq says:

    I love that song. It sounds so raw and young. One of the things that I really miss about NYC is that the streets are just filled with people mulling about, doing this and that on a hot summer night. You can feel the energy. In Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area, you really don’t have this sort of street life. I miss it a lot.Report

    • DW Dalrymple in reply to LeeEsq says:

      What I’ve always liked is that song paints a picture of NYC on a hot summer day and night. I’ve never been there but I could always visualize what it might be like there through the lyrics and the drive of the beat.Report