Those lazy days of summer

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. 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.

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. Farewell to the nostalgic memories of summers past in this song that now sounds like it came from some other world entirely.