Comparatively, the Southern area of the United States is known for its hospitality. An accurate portrayal of this charm is often depicted cinematically in folks making “small talk” about the weather. A life-long Southerner, I find myself engaging in this variety of inane talk quite often, especially when the weather is indeed awful or unusually spring-like.
Most certainly a fan of cold weather, snuggly clothes, bonfires, and winter holidays, I have never taken any pleasure in the Carolina heat. I did, however, gain a tolerable respect for its suffocating sting while briefly living with my husband and two children in the Great White North, or New York, as some folks also call it. I found the heat much easier to appreciate from hundreds of miles away, with six to eight months’ worth of snow on the ground, the winter chill forcing me into the life of a shut-in for over half the year.
This summer, however, has been so unmercifully, brutal, and unendingly hot, the subject has now surpassed small talk classification and graduated to a legitimate conversation topic.
In the 90’s, thanks to the broadcasting efforts of Robert Stack and his show “Unsolved Mysteries,” spontaneous combustion became a real concern for some. In one old episode of the show, Stack authoritatively narrated two cases of the phenomenon, and I have to say it was enough to convince me. If it wasn’t, this summer’s heat certainly would have me re-thinking my initial denial.
Not getting quite the coverage it deserves, or that it used to, not many people have heard of spontaneous combustion, a condition in which the human body out of nowhere bursts into flame. Some people report a burning sensation and sometimes seeing smoke coming from the location on the body, before the unexpected eruption of flame occurs.
Because I have a severe intolerance to heat due to having an autoimmune disease, Lupus, I wonder every summer how the women in the old days did it. When the topic of American fashion is discussed, rarely is the ridiculous impracticality of the bustle mentioned.
How did women wear those things? And they didn’t come just by themselves, oh no, the fashionable bustle was often accompanied by a girdle, and in extreme cases, sometimes a wig! How did women survive in the heat?
I often wonder how buildings were constructed during the dog days of summer back in the day. Working with my dad in construction, I can not imagine a day spent working under a blazing sun with no AC in my car or at home to run too. No, thank you!
Our ancestors were clearly built of stronger stuff than my weakling self because there is no way I could go outside in heat like we have experienced this summer, and do anything but complain loudly about being there. I admit it’s sad, but it is most definitely true.
So, what do you think of this heat? Are we in the final throes of a global warming caused planetary melting? Is it manufactured by the government? Or are Carolina summers just hot?