This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in Image July 7, 2022, East Bernard Express, East Bernard, Texas.
When you read this, we will have just celebrated Independence Day. As I write this, it is the day before the Fourth. My wife and I usually have hot dogs on this special American holiday, and when the kids were little, we did fireworks. Brisket is too expensive today, but I like hot dogs better anyway.
Interestingly enough, one of the main things I remember about my own childhood celebrating Independence Day in Dime Box, Texas, is that it was always hot, hot, and very hot. Yes, we put up our American flag and shot some fireworks, but, in those days of no air-conditioning, it’s the heat I remember!
The 21st century summers seem cooler to me than those of the 20th century, — but then we have air-conditioned cars and homes now, and didn’t back then. Thinking about hot temperatures and the Fourth led me to do a little weather bureau research.
The hottest summer days ever in Texas were August 12, 1936, and June 28, 1994, when the high reached 120° F. The forecast for July 4, 2022, for Houston is 95° F, Galveston, 91°, Dallas 102°, and East Bernard, 98°.
Whether due to global warming or not, that seems pretty high, so I am looking at temps for the rest of the world for July 4: 2022, and I see this: Baghdad, Iraq, 45°, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 42.7°, Doha, Qatar, 42.2°, and Delhi, India, 40°. That’s Celsius, but those temps are startling even converted to Fahrenheit, — 113° F, 109° F, 108° F, and 104° F, respectively. The hottest July ever in Baghdad was 125° F in 2020. Maybe Texas on the Fourth of July isn’t so bad after all.
However, one could escape to London where it will be 73° F on the Fourth, or to Papeete, French, Polynesia, where it will be 82° F.
So, it was hotter in Texas two years after I was born (1936) than it will be in Baghdad on this Fourth of July. And in 1994, when some of you younger folks were around.
No doubt, more than the heat, what I remember best about celebrating the Fourth in the 1940s is how patriotic everyone was. World War II began in 1939, and we were planting Victory Gardens, saving tinfoil and gasoline (not because it was expensive, but because it was rationed). We prayed before watching the war news together, and there seemed to be a great bond among all Americans. We flew our Stars and Stripes proudly and sang The Star-Spangled Banner with tears in our eyes. Celebrating the Fourth during the war was an emotional experience.
There is a burn ban in our area, so there probably won’t be any fireworks. My wife and I plan a quiet, restful Fourth, — we plan to eat our hot dogs and read the Declaration of Independence. And build an all-American jigsaw puzzle.
-o-
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired Wharton County Junior College teacher, a retired Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.