It used to be in the old days that neither heat nor snow and ice had much effect on us as a people. Whatever happened happened and how we dealt with it, inevitably, was a matter of how serious the weather conditions got.
Sometimes there was sufficient warning about what was heading our way and sometimes not.
This was long before mass media and 24/7 cable television and Internet weather reporting came into vogue.
Now we are made immediately aware of thunderstorms moving on upper winds heading straight for us as we are made immediately aware of a snow storm’s precipitation level or a cold wave and for the purposes of this editorial – made aware of a heat wave coming.
Those of you who watch early morning news on the television, or who listen to it on your radio on the drive to work or who surf the Net for instant news on your hand held computers and mobile telephones, heard about the heat wave coming Thursday and Friday.
You didn’t just hear about it, you were deluged with news about the awful heat expected to come our way.
The net effect of all the hype is to create a situation of something akin to stark terror.
The heat on the way is made to be like a mini plague. We are warned, as we were warned all week, that you need to drink water (no kidding), stay inside in air conditioned spaces (no kidding) and don’t take long runs outside or commit yourself to heavy exertion when the temperature is at 105.
When you hear such admonitions so many times within such a short space of time, you begin to emote about the heat coming.
It is like thinking about the hot hurricane blast obliterating everything in its way when an atom bomb goes off and then being told not to get in the way of the blast.
Bottom line – it is going to be very, very hot. But most of us aren’t going to die or be wounded on this heat battlefield.
We will all likely get through it and at some point the heat will fade away.
In the meantime, the Budweisers at Sully’s are almost cold as ice and inside the air conditioning will keep you as frosty as the beer.
See you there.