How did I beat the heat over the years, living in different climates?
When I was a kid, my mom let me do my chores super early during the Michigan summers because I melted in the heat. I don't sweat. My head just heats up and turns me into a turnip. I've gotten sun stroke and heat stroke more times than I can count. Now I just avoid the heat if possible.
When my daughter was born (so many decades ago), the Michigan temperature that day was 90F, with 90 percent humidity. I swear the hospital didn't have AC. I was so young and dumb that I dressed my daughter in her handmade dress and sweater outfit with a crochet hat for the trip home. We weren't but steps away from the hospital when I noticed my poor baby was sweating like crazy. I quickly stripped her down to her T-shirt and diaper!
My mom and I used to beat the summer heat by going skivvy dipping in the pond on our property. All the time.
We had a washing machine but no dryer when I was a kid and during the summer months we'd hang the laundry outside on the line. At some point my mom sent our sheets to a laundry in town and they'd come back pressed. I'm still searching for those pure cotton sheets that were cool and crisp in the summer.
There were times when it was too hot to sleep and I'd go into the large upstairs bathroom and lie on the tile floor to get some sleep. When I was older my parents had added on a two-story screened in porch and I'd sleep there.
I'm not a fan of heat and humidity yet I lived in Sri Lanka for 14 years where it averages 82F and humidity varies from 70 percent during the day to 90 percent at night. It didn't make sense that I would live there knowing my disdain for the weather, but the country was so amazing that it made up for it. Plus I'd take three showers a day and a nap during the afternoons.
My friend Penny, who lives in Minnesota, told me that she recently bought a mattress cover that she said made crinkling noises when she'd turn and was too hot for a comfortable sleep. It was made of some kind of plastic type of fabric. She returned it and got one with natural fabric that was cooling and has been sleeping comfortably ever since.
The temperatures where Penny lives aren't as hot as Lake County, but the humidity there averages 72 percent, whereas here in Lake County it averages less than 30 percent.
A friend is going through menopause with its hot flashes. She said, "Try going through a hot flash in this weather!" No thanks.
My cats lay like dead bodies all over the bare floors to stay cool. They don't move. I have to be careful not to step on them and squish them.
Mabel's husband, recently had shoulder surgery and has to wear a brace that has straps that wrap around his waist and a metal rod that keeps his arm elevated from his body. He's taken to sleeping in a lounge chair under a ceiling fan.
I've been hibernating in my lounge chair that's directly in the stream of cool air from the swamp cooler.
One summer trip to Colorado from Michigan, with my parents in a car sans AC, we drove with the windows down. My mother, sitting in the front passenger seat, was a smoker at that time. I was in the seat behind her and I swallowed more cigarette ash than was healthy! I didn't change seats in the back because we passed a lot of Army convoys and my mom and I had the best seats in the car to ogle the troops!
Who in Lake County is enjoying the three-digit temperatures and what do you do to stay cool?
What's a girl to do?…sit outside for some "fresh" air in the early morning when it's cool - a mere 93F and then hibernate inside after that!
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
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