Going Soft

Well, it’s Friday. We have our girls back and we’re in the middle of the Friday schedule. Right now, the girls are at tutoring. We have some adults that come on campus twice a week during the summer and help the girls with math, reading, and writing. These volunteers are a godsend and we are indebted to them greatly.
The day promises to be warm and sticky. I’ve some work to do outside, and am not looking forward to it, but it must be done. I don’t know why, but the heat seems to bother me more than it used to.
I can recall younger days when we had a swamper at home. That’s a water cooler; one of those boxy things that went into the window. Water ran down pads of some kind of material (which smelled wonderful the first few days) and cooled air that was sucked through them and blown into the house. On dry days, it worked great. On humid days, it wasn’t so good.
But as a boy, I wasn’t that concerned about humidity, heat, and discomfort. There were too many things to do in the summer and not enough time to do them. There were tree houses to build, field work to do, drain ditches and railroad sidings to explore, summer recreation, and a host of other things to keep a young mind occupied. The swamp cooler was just a brief respite at times from the heat and outdoors.
Now we lament that we are going soft. We have to have air conditioning and plenty of it. We don’t spend much time outside and when we do, we slather lots of sunscreen. We sweat and think it’s somehow unnatural. And to even think of building a tree house with old boards found on the board pile under the elm at the back of the place is not possible, because there are no more board piles laying around.
I don’t know if we’re going soft or not. In some respects, we’re tougher than ever. I’ll leave that up to you. But for right now, I’m donning my hat, my gloves, and a steely will to brave the heat and humidity of Wichita in July. If I make it back alive, I’ll let you know how it went.