When I Figured Out Humidity

My mother always wanted me to play tennis. "Dinah Shore still plays tennis and look how fabulous she looks at her age."

I was eight. I really didn't care how a singer over thirty years my senior looked. Citing Sandra Dee might have worked.

My mother bought me tennis clothes and tennis shoes, but oddly enough not a new racket. I am pretty sure I used hers. Well, used might not be the correct verb. I carried her old racket out of the house into the heat and humidity of a Philadelphia summer (notice she wasn't using it) and then found something else, anything else, to do. Indoor tennis wasn't big in the fifties or even the sixties--at least in our area--and I wasn't about to run around in direct sunlight swinging at and missing white tennis balls. (As I recollect that was the only color available back then.)

But I digress.

My point is that, even as a child, I hated heat and humidity.  Not only did I not want to play tennis, I didn't want to do much of anything that involved exertion in the sun. That is why it was an unusual summer morning that I hopped out of bed raring to go--although still not to the tennis court. I remember feeling like a new person, knowing there was so much to do--but not until I ran an errand for my mother.

I am sure my mother sent me to Blob's, a corner store that was not actually on our corner, fairly often. However, I would not even recall the store existed, except for that one day when the air was cool, the breeze was brisk and the sun was bright. I noticed houses, gardens and trees that I had never paid attention to be before. On the walk, everything I saw looked better, clearer, than it had on previous trips. Especially the trees. A light breeze made the leaves rustle and sparkle as they danced in the sun.

I remember only a tiny portion of that morning, a sliver really: me, standing at the entrance to Blob's looking down tree-lined Walnut Lane. This was what life is supposed to be. I felt all was right with the world, like a character in a 1950s Walt Disney television series. I don't know how I found out what made that day so different was humidity--or rather lack thereof. There were other warm, sunny days but that day was the best.

I remember another day like that and recall saying to myself, "If every day was like today, I could live forever." September 10, 2001 was one of those days. I remember because the following day was too.