Those lazy days of summer in Daydreaming on the Porch

I can hardly believe it. We’re having a relatively mild and wet summer. Yesterday was July 7 and it was only 86 degrees with a heat index of 98, whereas normally in our coastal South Carolina climate this time of year it would be 93-95 degrees with a heat index of 105-108. So when I ventured a three-block walk downtown to our glorious little independent bookstore, I wasn’t absolutely miserable, just relatively miserable. When I got inside the air-conditioned cool of the bookstore, however, my glasses fogged up immediately and I started dripping perspiration under my mask. No one else was wearing one, course. This is South Carolina, after all. I felt better when I found a book to buy.

This is what the climate scientists predicted with global warming: record-breaking heat and drought in the West and a bit less hot and wetter in the South.

It probably won’t last long. We’ve got the rest of July and August to endure, plus hurricane season. As I write this the first bands of thunderstorms from Tropical Storm Elsa are marching in, and I hear rain on my metal roof. Thunder, too. Humidity should be at about 100 percent today.

Future summers for the Southeast look grim. Sea levels rise is already having a noticeable effect here. And nobody in their right mind will be outdoors having a festive and patriotic July 4 picnic. Can you possibly imagine leaving potato salad and fried chicken out in that heat?

Farewell to nostalgic summers past in this song that now sounds like it came from some other world entirely. Actually, it did. I don’t even recognize it.

Last updated July 08, 2021