Thursday, January 14, 2016

Hot and cold

Bob mentioned that he did not think he could deal with temperatures that include a minus sign.

My mother, who has lived all of her 87 years in Texas, cannot understand how anyone can willingly choose to live in Wisconsin or anywhere that has such cold temperatures. I point out to her that we never have 30 consecutive days of temperatures over 100 [37.78 C], as happened when I lived in Dallas in 1980. If fading memory serves, we hit 113 [45 C] one day.  That image is an actual forecast from the Dallas area in 2011 (I think) when they had already had 75 days with temperatures over 100.

When I visited my family in Perryton, way up in the Texas Panhandle, around 1990, I looked for a picture postcard of the town to send back to the community at Holy Hill. I was unable to find one. Instead I sent them a postcard that said on the front: "If you lead a good life, say yours prayers and go to church on Sunday, when you die, you'll go to Texas."

On the back I wrote, 
In the week I have been here, it has gone up to 105 degrees [40.56 C] most days; lightning from the daily afternoon thunderstorms keeps starting fires in the wheatfield stubble that surrounds the town; and yesterday on our way back from somewhere, we had a combined dust storm/rain shower that produced a sort of mudstorm that covered the car and roads with muck. If this is heaven, I dread to think what the other place is going to be like.
My learned readers might point out that in Dante's Inferno, Lucifer is is trapped waist-deep in ice in the frozen lake Cocytus in the deepest circle of Hell. 

Discuss among yourselves. 

2 comments:

Moving with Mitchell said...

I have dealt in minus signs, but I will no longer do so willingly. Over 100, I can manage but not for long. Much of Texas has always been my idea of Hell. Sorry.

Lavada said...

This is exactly why I love England. South Carolina goes from tems in the 90's and hundreds and 300000000% humidity- to ice storms that shut the state down for days at a time. It's all Black and white there...VERY little shades of grey(also known as normal temps for Spring and Autumn).