BOB MCKINNEY: What i know

summer season is completely upon us these days as we take care of temperatures within the 90s with regularity.

individuals within the South will commonly be heard to claim, "It's now not the warmth, it's the humidity."

As I see it, yes it is the humidity, however's especially the warmth. Would I suffer 95 degrees greater willingly if the humidity have been much less? I doubt it. 95 levels is 95 degrees. Dry warmth or moist heat — it's still heat.

I grew up in south Arkansas, where summers had been (and still are) dreadful, so i'm acquainted with it. because I have always been a visual learner, in a single of the summers of my early life, as a result of so many people observed it can be carried out, i attempted frying an egg on a sidewalk.

i used to be disappointed it didn't work, because at that time in my lifestyles i used to be additionally a little bit of a literalist. If an adult I revered observed it, I believed it.

I later learned about hyperbole and literary license and came to settle for that eggs could not be fried in such a means and neither could I reduce the humid air with a knife. then again, it's sizzling outside and the humidity makes it worse.

With my having just spent 200 phrases describing my disdain for this time of 12 months, it would come as no surprise that for me, summer time is the least pleasing of the seasons.

but before I'm accused of being a glass-half-empty variety of guy, I want you to grasp I also are trying to see the positive. With that in intellect, I'll spend the leisure of this installment describing what I perceive to be the better of the summer season.

a trip to the mountains would be excessive on the listing. I had the privilege of working two summers in Rocky Mountain countrywide Park in Colorado when i used to be in school. moreover having greater enjoyable than i believed can be feasible, the weather became heavenly. daylight temperatures would from time to time flirt with 70 degrees and nights were downright chilly.

closing summer time we took our household and spent a week in Breckenridge, a ski community west of Denver it really is amazing after the snow melts, reminiscent of my two summers in that enviornment. It was near excellent.

So obviously, a technique to deal with the summer time temps round right here is to get out of town and head for a cooler environment. in case you can't make it out west, top notch Smoky Mountain countrywide Park and the mountains of western North Carolina are most effective a few hours away by means of vehicle. It gained't be as cool there as it is in Colorado, but you can also be certain of decrease temperatures and pleasurable mountain breezes the higher you traverse above sea level.

And if you are a seashore sort of adult, you may also be there in about seven hours. It's going to be simply as scorching there, if now not extra so, but the water can give welcome reduction (and it's captivating to look at). Sitting beneath an umbrella with a superb publication, feeling the ocean breeze, can also be downright pleasurable.

but if the majority of your summer is spent here in middle Tennessee as mine is, there are a couple of alternative ways I have found to make it bearable.

One is to benefit from the bountiful harvest of fresh fruits and vegetables. in spite of the fact that I complain concerning the warmth, I bask in what i will be able to purchase on the Franklin Farmer's Market (where i like to wander on summer Saturday mornings – before the heat units in, of course).

a cold watermelon, cantaloupe or honeydew is as good as candy to me. And a dinner of purple hull peas, sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob and green beans with new potatoes speaks to me in a way nothing else can. comply with it with a hot blackberry or peach cobbler with selfmade ice cream and that i can fairly lots suffer anything.

So if i will be able to get away for a number of days, and luxuriate in the spectacular meals of the season while I'm here on the town, i will be able to get via these dog days of summer season.

And lest I overlook, taking in a baseball video game also maintains summer time from being one of these downer. I haven't made it to First Tennessee Park to see the Sounds play this 12 months, but I've watched many a Braves online game from the consolation of my air conditioned domestic.

And speakme of air con, if I'm sincere, that blessed invention is perhaps my favorite aspect in regards to the summer season. i hope you're reading this while basking in it your self.

Bob McKinney is a longtime Brentwood resident, happy husband and proud father, sweetheart's father and grandfather. email him at bmac1018@yahoo.com.