Despite the fact that I just did a little jig in my backyard over the fact that our blackberries are almost ready and I went swimming in a great lake not once, but twice last week, there are more than a couple of things I miss about Oklahoma summers.
Yes, you read that right. I know it’s hot down there. Excuse me, I mean, I know it’s HOT down there. But last week we had record heat in northern New York and it made me remember some of the better parts of living in a place where hot, hot heat is just a normal part of life.
Here are a few favorites that haven’t seemed to cross the cultural/geographical divide:
Shaved Ice
I still remember when shaved ice became an inherent part of life where I lived in south central Oklahoma. I was about about fourteen when the trend hit. There were stands on every corner, hundreds and hundreds of flavors (one called “Tiger’s Blood,” and my favorite, cotton candy), and everyone in town was carrying around those Styrofoam cups filled with delicate mounds of fluffy ice doused in flavored sugar water with red spoon straws like they were the hottest fashion accessory.
New York, on the other hand, has perfected the ice cream stand. They pop up in the summer in just the same way as the shaved ice stands do in OK. But as much as I love me a great big waffle cone filled with birthday cake ice cream, I’m still partial to a great big cup of ice. It’s less filling, and far more refreshing when the heat is really on.
Central Air
Despite the fact that Oklahoma is very hot in the summers, at least you can usually find relief in modern homes down there. I remember the summer I was pregnant with Diva (who was born in September), I was so hot and uncomfortable in Watertown that I almost never left the side of my new best friend, the little window a/c in our bedroom. If I did get outside, it was to escape to the relative comfort of our lakefront cottage in Sackets Harbor. Once, I was so overheated and exhausted that the moment I lumbered out of my car at the cottage, I found shade and flopped myself flat on my back for a nap in the middle of the yard. I guess it must be a little alarming to see an eight-months-pregnant woman collapse on the lawn since since the neighbor ran over a few minutes later to check my pulse.
In NNY, the problem isn’t the heat, it’s the fact that it is not exactly affordable to put central air conditioning a 160+ year-old home with a wet basement. (At least that’s what my husband has been trying to convince me of for the past twelve years.)
I can count on my hands the number of people I know who have central air. Most of us have figured out it’s about as affordable these days to run a good window unit air conditioner as it is to run an older model box fan, but (unless you’re very pregnant) those are only for use at night while sleeping.
Plus, there’s the fact that NNY gets brief heat waves of no more than several days in a row, whereas Oklahomans suffer from 90+ heat from about the beginning of June, into September.
But imagine the ease, NNY peeps, of being able to switch that little switch on the thermostat from “Heat” to “Cool” during an unexpected, unprecedented March heat wave of nearly 90 degree temps. Yes, with central heat and air, it’s that simple. Maybe that will help you understand my nostalgia.
“Float Trips”
My husband told me the first time he went with his friends to a lake in Oklahoma, he thought someone was playing a joke on him. By and large, the bodies of water in that state are… smaller than they are up here. And, oftentimes… browner.
But Oklahomans aren’t picky. In my experience, what the water looks like is far less important than the fact that it is wet.
This might be somewhat specific to me. My grandmother owned a summer camp for children on the Illinois River between the Oklahoma-Arkansas border. Since the camp closed when I was sixteen, I haven’t experienced a true “float trip” where you literally paddle along a narrow stream until you come to some mild “rapids,” you eat and drink all day, you sing songs at the top of your lungs and you wave and holler at the people fishing on the shore.
Boating seems far more serious a matter here in northern New York. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s just not as simple a way to spend a day.
