Sick In the Summer

Is there anything worse than being sick? Yes, there is - being sick in the summer. We’re all kind of used to getting sick in the dead of winter, but being sick at the height of summer is just wrong. Summer is supposed to be long, lazy days of friends, fun, and games. It’s supposed to be a time to relax and chill out, not have the chills. So when my son recently was sick for a few days, I really felt for him.

Luckily for him, my wife and I weren’t like my Mom and didn’t make him stay inside for a couple of extra days just to make sure he was truly better. Back when I was growing up, Mom always made us stay in and do next-to-nothing for an extra day after being sick. I don’t really know if it was make sure we were no longer sick or if it was just a deterrent to faking sickness so we could miss a day of school (of course, I never did that!). Either way, I didn’t want to have to stay in the house any longer than I had to, especially in the summer.

Who would want to miss a couple of days of wiffle ball, playing catch, riding bikes, and chasing the ice cream man for a freebie? Certainly not me or any of my old friends. Even on those sauna-like August days when we just sat under a tree and read our comic books or Mad magazine while listening to our AM transistor radios, it was so much better than being cooped up in the house. As you can probably guess, growing up in a family of nine, we had no air conditioners in the house. That is, unless you consider opening up the windows and turning on the big blue fan in the living room air conditioning. I really didn’t care for staying inside.

I remember one summer when I was about 10 years old, I had a headache and was really hot, so I told my Mom. She took my temperature and it turned out that I had a fever. Mom gave me some aspirin (St. Joseph’s aspirin for children, chewable and supposedly orange flavored - blah) and made me go lie on my bed and read so that I would get better quicker. I wasn’t supposed to do anything outside of that bed in my room. While I laid there staring up at the ceiling, contemplating how to get out of the mess I got myself into, I could hear the kids in the neighborhood outside, running around, and doing what I wanted to be doing. I don’t know which made me feel worse, having a fever or hearing my friends having a great time outside.

At some point I fell asleep and woke up a few hours later feeling much better, so I went and told Mom that I was ready to go outside. She politely told me that I still needed to rest, and that I needed to stay in the house. There was no argument, no trying to convince her I was okay, and no chance I was getting out of the house. Maybe, she said, I could go out the next day if kept getting better. Miracle of miracles, I was better the next day. There was absolutely no way I was going to tell her I didn’t feel anything but wonderful. I was going out and I wasn’t going to miss another precious day of vacation. Ah, but Mom had other ideas and I had to stay in another day, “just to make sure.” If I ever got sick in the summer again, I don’t remember telling Mom, because that meant multiple lost days of being outside with friends.

So my son got over whatever he had after a few days and went back to his normal life; work, friends, being out of the house, and enjoying the summer. The amazing part was that this all happened without being forced to stay in the house, up in his room, for one extra day. I wish I could have had that when I was a kid, whether I got sick in the winter, spring, summer, or fall. But like I said, there’s nothing worse than being sick in the summer.

Feeling the Heat

We’ve had some really hot weather here in the Northeast lately and I have to say I just can’t take the heat like I used to. I feel like I’m always hot when it’s not even that hot outside, so lately I feel like I’ve been melting. I’m hot at work, I’m hot at home and I’m hot outside. Constant sweating makes me a dull boy. I get grumpy, I get edgy, I need to change my clothes twice a day. Well, not really, I just feel like I should change them a couple times a day. The deodorant just isn’t doing its job these days.

I thought as you get older, you’re supposed to get colder. I see plenty of elderly people walking around in 90 degree heat wearing flannel shirts, sweaters and sweatshirts, and wearing pants. The amazing part is they don’t even look warm, forget about hot. I’m in shorts and a tee shirt and I’m sweating. Not that I want to get older too fast, but I actually kind of look forward to the day I need a second layer in the summer. Heck, it would be nice to just not sweat for a few days. You’re probably thinking, well what about the winter when it’s 20 degrees and the wind is howling? If I’m outside, sure, it IS cold. But if I’m inside, I’m probably hot. This is how it works: if most people are feeling comfortable, I’m hot; if most people are cold, I’m feeling comfortable.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have any air conditioners. We had a couple of fans, but that was it. I remember we had a big blue fan that we put near the front door to create a breeze. When it was on high, it put out a lot of wind and it did actually cool down the living room. It was fun to stand in front of it and talk into it, because it made your voice choppy and sounded cool. Of course, after about 30 seconds of that we were told to get out from in front of it because we were blocking all the cool air. It was also pretty annoying to everyone in the room who wasn’t talking into it, but that was part of the fun. Singing into it was double the fun.

I think we tried putting the fan in the hallway where all the bedrooms were in the hope that it would work as well as in the living room, but it didn’t. Unless we could have made the air bend, there was no way to get the breeze into three different rooms. Even being at the end of the bed closest to the hallway didn’t work. Kids being kids, we still somehow managed to get a good night’s sleep despite the heat. It was so awesome to be lying in bed, windows wide open, listening to the crickets, and feel a breeze, however small or brief it was.

To help alleviate the heat, sometimes we’d go for “cool off rides”. We didn’t have air conditioners in the cars either, but when you drove with all the windows all the way down, it was a nice breeze. Sometimes we just drove around for a while, maybe even on the highway for a short time. Going 60 miles per hour with our heads hanging out the windows was not a pretty sight, but it sure did cool us down. Sometimes we went to the beach and sat on the sea wall or on a bench and enjoyed the breeze off the water. If we were really lucky, the ride included a stop for an ice cream cone. There was nothing like a Dairy Queen ice cream cone, the ice cream dipped into the chocolate that hardened up on the outside. There was always the delicate balance of taking your time to savor the cold treat without taking too long and having a melting mess running down your hand and onto your arm all the way up to your elbow. Hot and sticky – not a good combination.      

That’s about how I’ve felt lately; like a hot, sticky, melting mess. Maybe I should go for a “cool off ride” and go to the beach or get an ice cream. That is, after I change out of my sweaty, smelly clothes.