How Hot Was It?

Today I’m remembering the way it felt to be nine, ten years old in a Texas summer. Those days seemed so long. And so free: reading half the day (every day), going to the pool. It was hot, so hot. 

So hot it even felt hot in the pool sometimes. 

So hot we’d remark, “I wish I could shave my head.”

“God, that would feel good. But then you’d have to be bald. I wish I could take off my hair, then put it back on just as long as before. Or longer.”

“I wish I could take off my skin.”

It was so hot the crayons in my mom’s purse melted into a wax blob.

So hot your legs would burn on the vinyl backseat. That you would put on your deatbelt through a towel in your hand. If we had work seatbelts back then, which we didn’t.

So hot your popsicle melted before you could eat it all. 

So hot a big, cold dill pickle was just the thing we wanted at a swim meet. And a Dr. Pepper or a Big Red soda to wash it down.

It’s cold today, cold like every day from mid-September to May, and I have a nine-year-old. His hair is long and thick, and he never wants to shave it off.