{"id":79984,"date":"2019-09-25T08:30:19","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T13:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=79984"},"modified":"2019-09-25T23:47:11","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T04:47:11","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony-sweltering-sizzling-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony-sweltering-sizzling-september\/","title":{"rendered":"The View from the Balcony: Sweltering, Sizzling September"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why in the world would we expect September to be more temperate than August? Maybe since Labor Day passes early in the month and after Labor Day the fashion Nazis say we can\u2019t wear white but we can wear a winter white sweater? Perhaps because summer vacations are over and schools are back in session? Whatever the reason, the folly happens every year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Folks show more frustration over the September heat than in July or August. Maybe it\u2019s dehydration of the will. I admit that by the time September rolls around I\u2019m sick and tired of the heat, too. Heck, I\u2019m sick and tired of it when August gets here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a six-year-old I contracted chicken pox while on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in August. On the way back home to Madison we spent the night with relatives in Wiggins. It was one of the hottest nights of the year and they had no air conditioning. If you\u2019ve ever had chicken pox then you know it itches like all get out, but you\u2019re forbidden to scratch. Telling a six-year-old with chicken pox not to scratch is like telling John Currence not to open another restaurant. It ain\u2019t gonna happen. I itched, therefore I scratched, but I got no relief. I lay awake and cried much of the night. So, I have Posttraumatic Chicken Pox on a Hot August Night Disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up my dad took me dove hunting. The first season of dove hunting usually started on the first Saturday of September. More than once I saw my dad nearly faint from heat exhaustion in the dove field. So, I also feared becoming fatherless because of the September sizzles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seems to me that if you live in the Deep South long enough you out to know that cool weather typically doesn\u2019t show up in Mississippi until about the second week of October. I know that because one of my sisters\u2019 birthday is on October 11. The State Fair was always going on then. It was during that time that our first honest to goodness cold snap came around just about every year. That hasn\u2019t changed much, if at all. And if climate change is real\u2014and I believe it is\u2014the college students of today may live to see October become as sweltering as September. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I am more than thankful for the\nrespite from the scorching sun that can be had on The Balcony during September.\nIn June and July The Balcony takes a direct hit from Old Sol before, during,\nand after happy hour. There\u2019s no escape unless you use a parasol like the one I\nbought for my good friend, Leon, a very inciteful man, a few years ago. Leon\ntells me he still has it, but he won\u2019t bring it out in public. I don\u2019t know\nwhy. I told Leon that I thought it made him look quite fetching. Leon made an\nobscene gesture and said, \u201cFetch this, R.W.!\u201d Testy fellow, that Leon. His main\nsqueeze, No-Account Addie, stays on my prayer list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From mid-August through September,\nbecause of the repositioning of the solar system, The Balcony provides shade\nfor satiated refugees from the time the bar opens through the rest of the\ndaylight hours. And even if there isn\u2019t a breeze from Mother Nature, the two\nceiling fans will stir the air a bit. Even when the heat index exceeds 100\u00b0, if\nyou wear the right clothes and sit still long enough to acclimate, you can sip\nyour favorite beverage and watch the sweaty world go by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week Oxford\u2019s tropical temps were\nthe hot topic that Two Blondes On The Balcony, Farrin Hite and Celcie Uss,\nwanted to raise. My friends were kicked back in the shade, sippin\u2019 on their\njuleps, whining about the heat. I\u2019d finally had enough and told them it must be\ntough, given their ages, to live in a perpetual hot flash. Farrin Hite and Celcie\nUss eyed each other and unceremoniously dumped what remained of their juleps,\nice and all, in my lap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t recommend lap juleps as a regular way to chill, but when you\u2019re melting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West, well, any port in a storm, as they say. Plus, for once I was the coolest man on The Balcony. That\u2019s got to be worth something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026and that\u2019s the view from The Balcony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why in the world would we expect September to be more temperate than August? Maybe since Labor Day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[10286,2093,13250,10878],"class_list":["post-79984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-randy-weeks","tag-september","tag-the-view","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}