Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Be advised: The Big Heat is on its way

Marketplace \| Services \| Contact Us \| Community \| Arts & Entertainment \| Local Guides

Brooks Peterson

Monday, May 28, 2001
Be advised: The Big Heat is on its way

Famously, T.S. Eliot wrote that "April is the cruelest month." That may well be the case in his neighborhood, but it's obvious this distinguished literary gent never spent any time in South Texas.
   We all know what the cruelest month is, don't we? August, when temps blow the mercury out of our thermometers and suffocating humidity leaves us limp and dripping even after the mildest exertion. A trek from parking lot to office might as well be taking place in Borneo, for crying out loud.
   And it's coming. We all know it's coming. The Big Heat. Yes, neighbors, it's payback time - the time when nature balances the books.
   Not so very long ago, nature was making life miserable for our friends in the northland - icy streets, frozen gray slush, winds that cut through you like a stiletto, leaden clouds shutting out even the prospect of cheer. Depression, desperation and chapped skin everywhere they looked. Rock salt. Snow tires. Chains. Snow blowers - all the impedimenta of a brutal, socked-in, Rust Belt winter.
   That was then; this is now. As their ordeal ends - as flowers fairly erupt from the ground and that strange, silky rye grass of theirs turns the world a deep, magical green - we can see ours looming just over the horizon.
   Front blows in
   However . . . we still catch a break now and then. How about that cool front that rolled in - announced by a genuinely impressive sound-and-light show - early last week?
   The real payoff, however, came on Tuesday morning, when I opened the garage door and encountered . . . coolth.
   A pip of a day greeted me: A re-energized lawn, glorious sunlight (but without the searing heat) - and, best of all, surcease from humidity. That sort of crispness you just don't get down here, save under extraordinary circumstances.
   So I made the most of it, hopping into my un-air-conditioned British sporting machine for a drive to work that had suddenly evolved into a pleasure rather than an ordeal.
   Granted, I should have stowed the top - it's one of the articles of the MG Creed - but time was short.
   And you know what? Even with the top up, it was a hoot. The music of the spheres and the song of the exhaust. Try to get that effect in your hulking sport-ute, my friend. It'll tote the groceries and the kickball team - but achieve oneness with benign nature? I think not.
   Season of angst is here
   Since then, of course, the temps and humidity levels have resumed their upward progress, but there was something so genuinely inspiriting about this little breather that I'm still riding the high days later.
   Won't last forever, needless to say. Along with the Big Heat, we'll need to gird ourselves for hurricane season, which with each passing year seems to generate more angst and apprehension.
   Don't get me wrong: I'm a passionate believer in storm preparedness, as all those warped plywood panels stored in our garage will attest. And I suppose a certain amount of anxiety is conducive to that preparedness.
   Still, though we can't afford to be heedless, irresponsible grasshoppers, is it always and everywhere necessary for us to be hag-ridden, fretful ants?
   I suspect other people manage to strike a balance between the two extremes. I'll see if I can do a better job of it this time around.
   Meanwhile, leave us gird for other matters: specifically, ensuring that our A/Cs - home, automotive, you name it - are up and running, and that they have been force-fed refrigerant to the point that they can't accept another molecule.
   Finally, by way of summer issues, let us spare a thought for our distressed friends in California, who face the prospect of a genuinely horrific summer of rolling brownouts and thermostats spot-welded at 78 degrees.
   Their governor is blaming Texas for this state of affairs. I'd like to think we wouldn't be blaming California if the situation were reversed, but who knows?
   For now, we must simply . . . well . . . keep our cool.



Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com

| Talk about this column | Other Columns | Home |

[ Printer-friendly version ]
[ Subscribe to newspaper ]

SEND THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND