dual personalities

Here is a vintage photo of my DP (on top) and me (middle, right) with our cousins at their house on Lake Damariscotta in Maine, circa 1964. I don’t know where my brother is–off fishing with Bunker? Our Uncle George is in the back, holding up the pyramid. We had super fun that summer as you can imagine.

Indeed, I am thinking of those cool Maine breezes as we bear up through a mid-summer heat wave in flyover country. Heat waves are nothing out of the ordinary here–despite what HC may say–but they are no fun. In the summer of 1936, for instance, St. Louis endured an unbroken 37-day stretch of 100-degree–plus temperatures. I remember one old lady from my flyover institute telling me how in the 1930s they would escape the heat of their un-airconditioned city apartment by sleeping in Forest Park! The whole family. It was a thing people did (and were allowed to do). As a child, she had great fun. Maybe not as much fun as a lake house in Maine, but fun.

Fun is what you make it after all. So keep a merry heart and be thankful for air-conditioning. Pray for the electric grid.

A merry heart does good, like medicine,
But a broken spirit dries the bones.

(Proverbs 17:22)