Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Boy, it sure is hot today.
How hot is it?
It’s so hot I bought a loaf of bread and by the time I got home it was toast. It’s so hot my grandfather’s chicken laid an omelet. It’s so hot his cows are producing evaporated milk. It’s so hot the catfish are fried by the time you reel them in.
It’s so hot the Statue of Liberty disrobed. It’s so hot I went to Congress just to be around some shady characters. It’s so hot I intentionally leave the toilet seat up to get icy stares from my wife.
It’s so hot my children’s crayons are now watercolors. It’s so hot my iceberg lettuce melted. It’s so hot my apple juice fermented into wine. It’s so hot the corn in Nebraska started popping in the field.
It’s so hot that instead of writing a proper column this week, I stole a 50-year-old concept from Johnny Carson, then went to the internet for bad jokes. Because it’s too hot to focus on anything else.
According to The Weather Channel, it’s been 100 degrees or hotter every day since July 2 somewhere in New Mexico. And, the string of triple-digit temperatures isn’t forecast to end until the last day of the month.
By the time it’s over, this will clearly be the hottest summer on record. And not just for us. The hottest days on record globally have been this month. That dates back at least to the 1970s, when we first developed the technology to calculate global temperatures. Some scientists argue that it goes back much further than that, for thousands of years.
There is legitimate debate as to how we should best address this problem in a world that has so many diverse energy needs and means of production. But is anybody still arguing that there isn’t a problem?
I moved here more than 20 years ago, and thought I had become acclimatized to our summers. The hot season in June used to give way to the monsoons of July. And even on the 100-degree days, it would cool down at night.
This year, it’s so hot that by the time evening rolls around, I’m worn out. And that’s no joke.
Walt Rubel is the former opinion page editor of the Las Cruces Sun-News. He lives in Las Cruces, and can be reached at: