Dog Days

When you’re hot you’re hot

 

The summers of my youth were hot and humid, and the nights were a muggy mess. We didn't have air conditioning, and the only cool place was on the floor beside the front screen door. In fact, I don't think anyone used their interior doors in summer.

Catching a breeze

My sisters, who figured out where the warmest place in the house was in winter (the floor vent in the dining room) had commandeered the coolest place in summer. They invented the, you snooze you lose phrase. I remember racing down the stairs only to see a ghost in a sheet hovering over the floor vent. It was no different in summer. Now my mother was with the girls catching a summer night breeze. My brothers and I would try to sleep with just our fruit of the looms on. Our screen windows caught nothing but the sounds of crickets and the sounds of the odd hot rod racing down the road. There is nothing like sleeping in sweat and drool and hoping it was your own. Still, the sun rose, the birds sang and we woke up to the splendor of another summer’s day. 

Catching some rays

After breakfast, we boys would go to the flat roof and soak in the kiddy pool. My sisters and mom would cover themselves in coconut goo and lay around listening to music to catch some rays. My mother's canine Trixie watched from the shadows. Her mission: to enforce the no fun allowed rule. They were supposed to watch us but they didn't do a good job. 

Boys will be boys

We caught our rays by default as we fiendishly planned our summer rooftop activities. Popping tar bubbles but the most fun was picking pebbles out and dropping little bombs over the railing onto our next-door neighbour's spoiled kids' head. We'd hide, laugh and listen. We waited to hear the usual rant. "I'm going to tell your mother on you!" My mother couldn't hear her so we continued our torment. The dog was too old and too hot to care. She would look at us with half-closed eyes and just let us be. 

Too hot to run

When it was too hot to play, we found less strenuous things to do. We didn't have Legos or Play-Doh. Our dinky cars were parked in the dirt pile city in the backyard. Silly putty was fun for a second. We were bored.  I don't know where they came from, but we had a pile of pipe cleaners and a pile of time to kill. 

The peace brothers

There we were, catching rays on the steps of our front porch with our pipe cleaner creations. I was sporting my elastic grandma bowl haircut. I'm wearing oversized pipe cleaner eyeglasses. My brother beside me was working on his masterpiece.  He was wearing eyeglasses too . The youngest brother had an upside-down peace necklace. It was a hot summer day, but we were still cool.

There are no dog days. It's never too hot. And boredom is just misguided ambition. Play.