I'm Just Going To Leave This Right Here: The Hot Enough For You? Edition

Hot enough for you? We’re close to neck deep into summer. Summer in the south is a rather unique beast. I know our friends in the northwest and midwest brave bitter cold winters and snowstorms of the century every year. They then laugh at us here in the south when just the mere threat of snow can clear bread shelves and dairy chillers in Winn-Dixies, Piggly-Wigglys, Food Citys and Bi-Los in a five-hundred mile radius. We just got to have us some sandwiches and milk in case we get stuck inside the house for a day. Still, we just aren’t accustomed to the snow and ice. Our winters are generally not that harsh so when a snow event happens, it really is an event. Yes, we have four wheel drive trucks and jeeps but trust me when I say every small town in the South has a giant mud hole somewhere near a lake, river, quarry or cowfield where those vehicles can realize their true calling.

So, to our friends outside the South, you can keep your winters. We appreciate you taking the brunt of those icy winds and cold snowfalls. Go ahead, chuckle when one of those storms gets it’s GPS off-kilter then slides our way closing our airports and highways so that it brings out our rough-edged neighbors all wide-eyed and cheesy-grinned to tell the TV reporter how they “ain’t never seed nothin’ like this bee-fore.” Yep, you can keep all that. We’ll take summer every day.

That said, summer in the south is not for the faint of heart. It really is hot here. It really is muggy here. It can be hard to breathe at times. The mosquitos become so mean and big we grow concerned that may carry off small animals. The kudzu grows so crazily we consider not only making jelly out of it but ponder how it would taste if we cut it up, rolled it in flour then doused it with salt and pepper just so we could fry it in hot grease. When the rainclouds disappear for weeks on end, our yards turn brown and dusty, so sometimes we worry we may have to ration our water usage. When a summer storm does come up it can be brutal with damaging winds, hail and so much rain in a few minutes that we can see animals gathering together by twos. That, by the way, is a Noah and the ark reference for all y’all that don’t see why Sunday School is a good thing. We’ll take all those hard, dangerous things about a Southern summer for you. So, you guys up north can take care of the winter, leave the summer to us here in the South. No, our summer is not like your blizzards, snow squalls or lake effect snows but we’ll take what we have over having to invest a lot of money into heavy coats, thick gloves, wool socks, snow shovels, back-up power generators and other accessories that most of us down here would never think would be needed. After all, I once went to Minnesota in July. When I got there I was asked the whereabouts of my jacket. I told this person how where I come from I may not wear a jacket until after Christmas. A jacket in July? Perish. That. Thought. We’ll do the heavy lifting on the summer. Don’t worry about thanking us, either verbally or through a nice hand-written note on heavy-stock paper, we’ll let that slide as long as we all agree it is our civic duty, as the South, to soldier though the summers.

Don’t worry if you think we may get carpal tunnel syndrome from waving a funeral home fan in our faces. Don’t think we’re sitting around sipping mint tea while dramatically wiping sweat from our brows with a handkerchief our great, great granddaddy once wore to a train stop just so he could lay eyes on Teddy Roosevelt. You see we found out a long time ago how cool the water is that runs through our creeks and rivers into our lakes. We have found a certain secret formula that detects the exact spot where the wind blows the just-right breeze under a shade tree. We will adapt.

That said, don't think we don’t miss winter and the cold. We have an appreciation for breathing clear, cool air. We know it can be refreshing. We understand there is nothing quite like watching the path a snowflake takes as it dances to the ground. Still, it’s summer, 98 degrees with a heat of index of 123 degrees. We got this.

We will push through, doing our duty by carrying the load of summer on our tanned but sweat-soaked shoulders. Despite the heat, we will likely daydream of an arctic breeze from time to time. I mean summer will come to an end at some point and we can dream now of colder weather. So, if you are missing the cold, winter months, never fear, I am here for you. Sit down, relax, turn up the air conditioner then enjoy some beautiful winter scenes by clicking the link below. I’ll just leave this right here in case you need it. Jacket optional.

Beautiful Winter Scenes 

Darkness At The Edge Of The Stairs, part two

I slowly walked down the steps making the turn on the landing then walked down the remaining steps. In the darkness, I walked into the basement the three or four steps necessary for me to reach toward the ceiling to pull the small beadlike chain that turns on the light that illuminates the downstairs.

With this lone lightbulb shining I looked around. The sights were as familiar to me as any I have ever known in my life. Directly in front of me stood Mom’s ironing board. I rarely remember it placed anywhere else than in the very spot it stood. I recalled years earlier when I was just days away from leaving home for college. I would take a portable ironing board and a regular iron with me then. Mom though was insistent that I understood how my clothes would need to be ironed then determined to show me how. She did that in this very spot. First, she would iron a piece of clothing then she would ask me to iron another piece of clothing. It sure seemed like something rather unimportant at the time to me but I know those tips and tricks are still engrained in my memory to this day. The thought of how she felt this was something I needed to know but more importantly was also something she knew she could teach me makes me try to comprehend the depth of love that simple act covers.

Behind me clothes hung on racks against a wall. I knew Mom’s jacket would be here. I quickly located it. I didn’t take it off the rack immediately though. Instead I took a long look around at this part of the house I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

On the floor were a few stacks of books. Some of them remain from my college career. Also, there was an old lamp from the living room, some paint, and a laundry basket full of old toys passed down from the grandchildren to the great-grandchildren. These things are bits and pieces of the lives that have lived in the upstairs over decades, nothing all that important in the present moment but still things with enough value in the time gone by to still be around.

I looked over to another wall. Remaining there surrounded by white paint was a handwritten blurb “Painted in 1965”. Outside the blurb, the walls were painted yellow. I chuckled knowing the walls in the basement had been painted several times since 1965 but that blurb had never been updated and that small space hadn’t seen paint since 1965.

I walked into the other half of the basement. Straight ahead my eyes locked onto one of two windows on the outer wall. Dad replaced these windows years ago from the ones we had while I was growing up here. I remember when they were a different style than the present windows and could be opened from the outside. I recall this quite well because once Mom and I were locked out of the house. There was no house key hidden in some obvious place outside the house. I was young and small then so my Mom felt she had only one option to get back in the house. We opened one of those basement windows then she lowered me into the basement. Once I made the long drop to the basement floor I ran up the stairs to unlock the front door.

Another wall of the basement was lined with canned goods. Vegetables and jellies and jams grown by family and friends then preserved in cans for use throughout time seemed stacked ten or twenty deep on multiple shelves. I always remember these shelves like the way I found them this day, stocked to the hilt. I couldn’t help but smile at the planning, ingenuity and generosity captured in each glass jar. It made me thankful that this part of life some never knew was part of life I would always know.

I knew Mom was waiting on her jacket. I walked over to the rack of clothes then located it. I removed it from the rack then reached to turn off the light. As I did I noted one other thing I long remember about the basement in this house. On

the door frame above the first step to leave the basement hung a small horseshoe. Some will say that it hangs there to ensure good luck. As I began those steps I couldn’t help but realize I had been blessed with more than just good luck. The memories I stirred up by taking a short trip to the basement of the house where I grew up made me understand pure happenstance has nothing to do with having a good family and good memories. Hard work, determination and love overseen by God above built this house into a place where good memories were made by a group of people I am humbled to call my family.

As I made the final step to return to the main floor of the house, I reached to turn off the light for the stair landing which would plunge the basement back into the darkness I may always associate, in some way, with that particular part of this house. Doing this small thing felt so familiar. It almost felt as if I still lived in the house.

I no longer live there though. I know though in some way it will always be a place I call home.