If You Can't Take the Heat

This summer Pittsburgh has seen record breaking temperatures and very dry weather. The past few days it has been over 90 degrees. I feel truly blessed to live in a house with air conditioning. The kids and I are either in the house or at a pool somewhere. We haven't spent too much time outside over the past few weeks.

When I was growing up, we didn't have air conditioning. No one had it, though, so it didn't seem like we were deprived in any way. During the few really hot weeks during the summer, we would just suffer through it, go to the local swimming pool, or run through the sprinkler in our backyard. The only time it seemed bad was trying to sleep through a hot and humid night.

Fortunately, we had a neighbor with a large front porch and lived during a time when a child being kidnapped was almost unheard of. Our neighbors had three boys and three girls and the youngest girl, thankfully, was my age and a good friend. On those unbearable nights, we would throw down some mats and sleeping bags on their front porch and sleep outside where we could at least have an occasional breeze blow over us. In the mornings my mom would call my name and I would run down the block to my house for breakfast.

As I supervise my two kids playing in the backyard (since our kids are no longer safe playing in their own yard), I am thankful for the air conditioned house that I live in and that my kids get to grow up with that perk. I'm also sad, though, that they won't be able to enjoy a neighborhood campout on a front porch when things get a little too hot inside.