"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."  Mark Twain or maybe Will Rogers, possibly both 'n now, me!

It's a quiet village…

as the heat settles upon us here in Ol Fair Oaks….well, we were having a good run as far as summer heat goes…only a few triple-digit days so far this year but now (shrug) it's s'pozed t'be our turn to burn….

I'm gonna take a 'wait 'n see' attitude to the 'hole thing….the last couple summers we only had a few dayz of classic Sackamenna summer….thanks to the El Nino or the La Nina, I never c'n remember which one is responsible…

This heat wave, the first of the season apparently, according to the weather guys anyway, is supposed to stick around for a week, give or take….that can't hold a candle to what's been happening back in the States (east of the Rockies)….some of those people back there, the lucky ones with a/c, got some horrendous 'lectric bills 'cause they've been running their a/c day 'n nite for over a month…..

When I wuz a boy (back in those halcyon daze of yore) we had heard of air-conditioning but few of us had actually experienced such a thing….some people had electric fans but most made do with the little hand-held cardboard fans…(churches would stock them in the pews with the songbooks)…people would sit outside in the evening shade, fanning 'n gossiping about whatever the daily doing's had been…

I had a Ford convertible when we first came to California 'n I put the top down in February 'n left it down until June when it got so hot I had to put it back up to get away from the sun…that first summer is when I became acquainted with 'swamp' coolers….they worked pretty well…put a lot of moisture in the air 'n cooled things off considerably but they had drawbacks also….f'r one thing, if you had  one in a window with a wooden casement, it didn't take long for the rot to set in but, considering the alternative, people replaced a lot of casements….

Almost never see water coolers t'day…once in a rare while, I'll wander into a store that has a huge commercial water cooler going….makes a pleasant change from 'refrigerated' air….