Heat Wave

This heat wave reminds me of the past heat waves we’ve had in July. The most memorable ones are those that happened when we had company from out of state. I always told everyone from Pennsylvania, “come to the air-conditioned city of Duluth, it’s so nice here in the summer, temps in the 70’s.” So, what happens almost every time that company comes from there? A heat wave! Granted, it’s usually July when they come, and July is when we get our heat waves…but does it have to happen when our company comes? Each one of those years, the heat only happened while the company was here!

They, of course, did not mind the heat. But, I am the hostess, and the heat and humidity did not go well with me. When my best girlfriend and her husband from New Jersey came in July, I was so miserable, we went to Park Point to the beach and I just about died. They couldn’t understand why I was complaining so much about the heat, it didn’t bother them!

A cousin and her husband, the same thing….so hot I couldn’t stand it. At 11 pm we walked around Canal Park by the waterfront, trying to cool off…it was still hot.

Bob’s cousins from Maryland, 6 of them came one July. I wanted to fix a big Italian meal to impress them at our home. Boy, cooking a big meal, at 96 degrees was no fun. One of the women sat on the front porch and kept telling me she was waiting for the north breeze. I had told her that our temperature could often change at a drop of a hat, when the wind would change over Lake Superior, so she was on the porch waiting for that change! (It never came).

Then there was that first summer after I was married, when Mom and Dad came. That was the first heat wave I experienced. The windows in our apartment were all old and painted shut, only one small window in the bathroom would open. My Mother kept saying that we “HAD” to get windows open to get some air. The next day she insisted on going to a store to buy a fan. Every store we went to, the fans were sold out. We had to put our name on a list for the shipment to come in the next day! We got the fan…I still have it! And to think, up until that time, I complained all May and June about how cold it was in Duluth!

One good thing about heat waves in Duluth, they don’t last more than a week, usually. Most times, it cools off at night, not always (like Friday and Saturday of this past week, it didn’t), so when it cools at night, at least you get a good nights sleep. I notice that after a stretch of a few days of heat, people in Duluth start getting grumpy. We just aren’t used to the heat, and when it affects people’s sleep, they get grumpy.

The funny thing with our company being here during the heat wave is that I would always tell them “it’s usually not like this”, and I would tell them that they “brought the heat from the east”. Of course, you know that as soon as they left Duluth….the heat wave let up! I can’t blame anyone from back home for bringing us this heat wave we’ve just had…I don’t have any company right now.

By the way, the heat improved yesterday, it was only in the 80’s instead of 90’s, we had a breeze yesterday (though not a cool one), and last night the temperature dropped, this morning it is 57 degrees, so much more pleasant! I think we've now had our July heat wave for 2006 and today will be cooler.