The media is reporting this is Miami’s hottest summer ever. Every time I step outside I’m inclined to agree. Previous summers I have memories of an occasional overcast afternoon where you would get the slightest of respites from our oppressive weather. Sometimes you would even feel an ever so kind breeze. But this year it has been a stagnant oven that never gets turned off.
I always remember hearing complaints about Miami’s summer heat. But somehow as a kid in the ’80’s I was dropped off at a summer camp where we wiled away the hours outside. That seems impossible now.
Then back in ’99 I had that job where I had to drive around town making deliveries and pick-ups in a van without air conditioning. Seems like in the summer of 2023 that would also be an impossibility without leading to a manslaughter charge.
Working that job in the heat back was brutal enough that I told myself I would never spend another summer day in Miami. I held true to that promise for over a decade.
But I’ve been back since 2011. Every summer has been tortuous, but this year has somehow seemed much, much worse. In my head I figured that was a sign of growing older and softer. I had lost the edge and toughness I once had from spending too many summer months in balmy California.
So I am grateful that meteorologists, weather girls, and the farmer’s almanac are stating it is scientific fact that Miami is slowly melting.
They send me daily texts and e-mails warning me of a heat advisory in South Florida. Somehow I didn’t get on the mailing list for the water is wet advisory.
