Papa November

It was 87 degrees here the other day. A typical spring day in Olympia is about 65 degrees and may include a shower or two, even our August temperatures generally hover in the high 70’s. This is just hot enough to keep the moss from making the jump from our trees, lawns and window sills to our hair. It is without a doubt the most pleasant summer I have experienced anywhere. Of course, it is competing with the suburbs of LA, where 95 is a reprieve and in October, when Olympia is a fall wonderland full of sweater clad families taking walks through the crunchy orange and red leaves; LA is on fire, fueled by the furnace like Santa Ana winds (also known as the murder winds- “Those hot dry winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. ” —Raymond Chandler, “Red Wind)

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I also spent a couple of summers in Houston. I don’t know if it is even fair to compare the two. Somehow Houston got the whole concept of summer wrong. In most places, summer is a time for picnics and family fun. Kids are out of school and playing in the streets; dogs are catching frisbees in the park. In Houston, kids are hunkered in the cool damp under their front porches wishing for air conditioned classrooms. Picnics are cut short by heat stroke and fire ants. The fire ants don’t come to take away the crumbs of your meal. Fire ants come to conquer. They climb up your pant legs, stealthily; hundreds of them, then they give the signal and they all chomp down at the same exact time. The person that has been bitten then jumps up in utter confusion as they desperately try to figure how and why they are on fire. Failing to see smoke or flames, they then tear their pants off in the middle of the park and roll around in the dirt screaming at the injustice of it all. Meanwhile, the ants carry off the whole picnic, basket and all. Another sign that summer has begun in earnest is the cycle of unbearable heat, followed by rain, followed by steam hovering over the sidewalks as the sun comes back out, followed by hail, which is then melted in the blistering heat. My memories may be a little biased though, since I spent my summers on a bike in a tie. Maybe they are just colored by heatstroke. We did have a test to determine relative humidity though, so there is some empirical evidence - If your nipples were visible through your shirt within 10 minutes of leaving the apartment, there was a good chance it was humid. If you couldn’t tell if the water was falling to the earth as rain, or rising from it as steam, it was very humid.

So, while 87 degrees in the spring may be normal in some places, it was a serious shock here. Air conditioning is uncommon, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that my brilliant idea of taking the family down to the river for a swim was shared by every single person in the surrounding three counties. The water was freezing and moving quickly,but it felt great and it didn’t keep my four year old from begging me to take him deeper so he could see the snarl of logs and branches firsthand. As we were leaving, we saw two cops talking with an obviously inebriated teenager. I don’t know what he did to get culled from the other 200 drunken teens, but they were having a pretty serious conversation with him. All of a sudden we heard a slurred shout of, “Not if you can’t catch me, you won’t!” and turned to see the teen making a run for it. His arms were windmilling wildly as he ran and he was slowly tilting to the left. He made it about 15 wobbly feet before one of the officers tackled him to the ground, he rolled and ended up on his knees just as the other officer came flying through the air like a torpedo and took him down for good. As we drove off, we heard the officer say, “B-R-G…. that’s your name? You’re sure about that, huh? You spell it “B-R-G?” They were unconvinced. My four year old, Grant was unconvinced that they were the good guys. “Why did those blue guys try to hurt that guy? They aren’t being nice. They shoved him. We don’t shove”.

Summertime in Olympia isn’t all freezing water and drunken teens, though both figure prominently. A typical summer’s day starts with a cool fog, which burns off to reveal the fact that there is a giant volcano looming over town. It’s easy to forget it’s there since 10 months of the year it is cloaked in haze. Whenever it comes out it always startles me, because it is RIGHT THERE and Mt St Helens didn’t really set a very good example for it. After a rainy Olympia winter, we find ourselves squinting at the smallest hint of sun, but we still rush to the parks to dry out our pruney fingers and damp socks. Summer in Olympia also means blackberries. Blackberry crisps, cobblers, pies, jams, pancakes, ice cream, cheese cake, muffins and syrups. Blackberries filling your freezer in quart size Ziploc bags, and children with purple blackberry fingers. They aren’t hard to find, because they are a weed here. While the rest of the country buys them at nurseries, in the North West Home Depot sells blackberry killer. I was in the yard yesterday trying to extricate some tendrils that had made their way into my tool shed. Surprisingly, you can still buy them in stores (if you are too lazy to fill a bucket yourself). It is also common to find bags of apples or flower bulbs set out by the sidewalk for whoever is interested. I have a garden full of irises that were acquired that way. In Houston if you leave things out they will disappear too. My friend lost a bike that way. It’s probably rusting in the grass while whoever stole it sleeps in the shade of his porch, wishing it wasn’t too hot to ride.