Where's the global warming when you want it?

It's been a very unusual August this year up here in Pennsylvania.

I know it's been unusual because I haven't been in Sam and Deb's pool at all in August. Every other year since he and Deb got the pool I've found occasion to be up there floating around at least once or twice each August. We simply haven't had any strings of the 90 plus degree days and warm nights it takes to get that pool up to the 80 or so degree temperature which has become my minimum required comfort level.

Back in the old days I would happily go into the ocean down in North Carolina when the water temp was in the mid 70's. And back in the really old days I would inch into the ocean in Stone Harbor or Avalon even if the water temp was down in the high 60's or low 70's. Back even further, back way deep into the mists of time, I remember me and Sam and Jas spending long periods in the surf at Atlantic City unless the water was so cold your arches and ankles hurt from standing in it. But that was the ocean, and the ocean is different from a pool. A pool should be comfortable.

Mom and Pop only took us down the shore one or two days per summer back in those really, really, old days, so we approached the beach and the ocean with a certain amount of determination. We were singleminded in getting our full quota, and then some, of sand and surf and sunburn on those days no matter the cost in pain. And there was some pain, for back then before people knew about skin cancer we went to the beach without an umbrella. When Mom slathered the Coppertone of that era on us she was basting us like turkeys rather than swaddling us in any protection.

Me and Jas used to get moderate sunburns on our noses, shoulders and insteps, but Sam, lighter skinned, used to get as red as a lobster. You think I'm kidding, but him and Jas know I'm not. It's surprising he never got sun poisoning.

Marianne, after she arrived to go to the shore with us, spent most of such days in her portable playpen covered with a beach towel like a bird in a cage, so I don't remember her ever getting sunburned. I do, though, have a picture up on the other computer of her chubby little face and her chubby little legs and arms poking out of a cute two piece swimsuit; but I don't know how to put pictures on the blog yet.

I put that in about Marianne because I've gotten some flak for not including her on this blog when I write about Sam and Jas. But, duh, do the math! Marianne wasn't born til 1960 or so. And thus far I've mostly written about stuff that happened in the 1950's. Also, by the early 1960's Mom was plenty wise concerning our ways with toys and windows and bikes and pets and first generation TV remote controls and swivelling easy chairs and other things.

Mom would never have let Me and Sam and Jas out of her sight with something as fragile as a one or two or three or four or five year old. As a result I was too old by the time Marianne became available to participate in interesting events out of sight of Mom to remember her as a participant in many interesting stories, although there are a few. There is, for instance, the interplay of Jippon and Lion-Lion. I haven't gotten around to writing about that yet even though Jas and Sam and I were talking about Lion-Lion just the other week. We were wondering where he is, something we periodically do. We know where Jippon is, but we don't know where Lion-Lion is.

But I have digressed. . .

August is supposed to be hot. It was always really hot when I was a kid, and it was always hot before this year. And just to prove I can do investigative journalism I asked the lily lady the other day if she ever remembers an August as cool as this one, and she can't remember one either. The lily lady has been growing daylillies up there above Fairview Village since back when I first commuted to Fort Washington 33 years ago. Her gardens looked old then, and she looked old then. She has to be twenty, maybe even thirty, years older than me. She's so old I'm amazed each time I stop to look over her garden and find her still alive to answer her door.

So this is not just me. The lily lady said this is the coolest August she ever remembers. So where is all this global warming I've been hearing about?