Why I Like Hot Weather

People love to gripe, especially about the weather. Talking about it is one thing, since it’s something we all share in common. But griping is quite another, and counterproductive. It doesn’t change the weather, but it does affect attitudes, and not for the better.

Of course it’s hot. It’s summertime in Memphis, duh! Did you think you were in Norway, perhaps? Griping about the heat is like, “Man, that voltage bites! I stuck my finger in the light socket and it shocked the fire outta me!”

I like hot weather because it isn’t cold. Dead things are cold. Living things have heat. In the summertime, I feel more alive.

I like hot weather because I’m not sick. In the winter, everybody gets sick and the choir at church is always short a few people. Coughing, sneezing, puking, wheezing; typical winter.

I like hot weather because things don’t break as much. It’s easier to keep a car running. In the winter, you wake up in the morning and can’t get to work because the cold weather done you in. Not so in summertime. Pipes freeze and burst in winter. Plants are destroyed, animals freeze to death, the streets become impassible with ice & snow.

I like hot weather because it’s prettier. This harks back to my first point. In the summertime things are green and alive. In winter, any snow becomes filthy sludge after a day and you have to look at it until it melts, which is a long time. Cars become filthy. The whole environment becomes filthy. Nothing grows, so the earth becomes mud.

People say, “I can put on more clothes to stay warm, but in summer you just suffer.” Drink more water and slow down. Relax and let your body cool itself. Most distress comes from that frantic, griping attitude. Chill, bro.

The Flying Autoharp Pick

In church this past Sunday I performed my first autoharp instrumental solo as an intro to a quartet number. The quartet was to break into a rousing a capella singing of “To Canaan’s land I’m on my way” just as soon as I’d finished playing one verse and chorus of “I’ll Fly Away.”

I started with just the melody, began to add the thumb, and eventually had a torrent of sounds rushing out of the instrument, just as if I knew what I was doing. But when I got to the chorus and was playing at high speed with with all my might “I’ll fly away, fly away, oh glory!” my thumb pick did exactly that–seven feet high and over the pulpit and onto the steps below.

The tenor retrieved it for me and, as I put it on, I just said “I hate it when that happens.” Everyone laughed, I played the remainder of my into, and the quartet and other string band members did a great job on the rest of the song.