Thank You to Those Who Toil and Broil in Southern Summers

Assistant Fire Chief Steve Padgett of Sallisaw was tooling around Sallisaw this week, above, in the Sallisaw Fire Department’s 1950 fire truck. Fire Chief Anthony Armstrong said they call it the “Parade Truck.” He said the Sallisaw High School football team wanted their photo taken with the truck. I take that to mean the football boys hope to put out the fires of their rival teams this year. Go Black Diamonds!

That’s pretty cool. And cool is the object here. Cool is apparently something we are going to have to wait to experience, maybe in September or October. UGH! Yes, this is my annual Summer Heat Rant. I can’t take the heat. I want cool. But this week, with temperatures forecast to be at 100 degrees or higher, cool is something we may only find in a well-air-conditioned work place or home.

Heat knocks me off my feet, literally. I figured this out as a young woman who was living in San Angelo, Texas, with hubby who had been sent there by the U.S. Air Force. This little Indiana farm girl was not prepared for a Texas summer. Truthfully, when I walked outside in Texas in the summer, I fainted. It was downright embarrassing. Open door. Walk outside. Hit the ground. And that’s when I began to hate southern summers. Give me spring! Give me fall! I’ll even take a southern winter, with ice, over a cold northern snow-smacked winter. But save me from a southern summer.

And one day this week I wondered how other southerners survived heat, especially those who protect and serve us. That is our firefighters and police who must toil and broil in our southern heat. Firefighters go out to save our lives and homes from fires, and are required to dress for protection. They gotta wear all that gear – helmets, and boots, and gloves, and heavy coats. Then, they have to run and lug around heavy water hoses and ladders. How do they do that, and not faint!?! Our police officers are in the same protective-clothing boat. They gotta wear those bullet-proof vests, fancy police officer clothing, and a tool belt from which hangs a full set of crime-fighting armament. Ever looked closely at a police officer’s equipment belt? Good grief. Cops haul around everything from hand cuffs to hand guns. My grandma didn’t have that much stuff in her kitchen gadget drawer.

I asked Fire Chief Armstrong, “How do you do that?” He laughed at me. That’s normal.

“Well, you just get used to it,” he said. “You practice.”

Well, I practiced walking out the door into a Texas summer, and it didn’t help me a bit. Just this week one of Sallisaw’s fireman suffered a bit of heat exhaustion at a small house fire. Chief Armstrong assures us our fireman recovered quickly and is going to be fine.

So for him and all our firemen and police officers, let’s give them a round of applause and a pat on the back in this August heat. They deserve thank yous year round, but to do what they do in a southern summer heat wave is, to me at least, way above and beyond the call of duty.

Thank you guys and gals. You are amazing.

Back to that Texas summer, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. So, after spending a horribly hot summer in Texas, the U.S Air Force sent Airman Hubby and me to the most logical place they could think of. Yep, we spent the next winter, and the next three years, in Alaska. And I must report that an Alaskan summer, all 30 days of it, is fantastic.