You know you’re in Northern Virginia when you get out of
your air conditioned car any time during daylight hours and your glasses fog
up. It’s that combination of temperatures above 90 degrees and humidity that
rivals the Amazon. (This means that about a month ago I reconciled myself to
the fact that I was going to have a bad hair day that lasts through
mid-September.)
Saturday I returned a book to the library around 0800, and
from the moment I got out of the car, walked ten yards to dump it in the book
return slot and then got back into the car, I was functionally blind.
There’s also that sense that every time you leave an air
conditioned building you feel like you’ve walked into a blast furnace, and it’s
sucking the air right out of your lungs. On days like these I wonder at the
fortitude of men who met in battle within an hour’s drive of here in July,
August
and September.
Their uniforms were wool, their rifles and packs were heavy and the only water
they had was what they carried in their canteens.
Every time I’ve walked the fields of Manassas and Sharpsburg
I’ve thought about them, wondering how they managed to form ranks, much less
fight for hours, in that heat and humidity. It reminds me that what we enjoy
today has been paid for over and over across the years.
It makes me grateful for clean water coming from the taps;
for air conditioning in offices, residences and transportation; for peace in my
neighborhood; for opticians; for cotton clothing; for construction workers, first responders, crossing guards, and everyone who does their job out in this God-awful heat. And for the prospect of fall.
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