The temperature gauge hovered around 70 degrees the day I drove into Farmington, Maine to report to my new job as publisher of The Franklin Journal.
It was the first week of July and by the looks of the locals, it might as well been 105 degrees outside.
Children were playing in the sprinklers. Mothers were patting their brows with cool washcloths. City street workers were hunched over their bright orange IGLOO coolers filling their cone-shaped paper cups in nonstop fashion.
Me? I had the window rolled down and the air conditioner turned off. For all practical purposes, it was a beautiful day.
By the time I reported for work the next day, the temperature had climbed to 78 and the ladies in my office were lamenting what they referred to as the “heat wave.”
“I can’t even stand to turn on the oven,” said Heidi, our news clerk and part-time copy editor. “It’s just unbearable.”
Having just left Oklahoma where the temperature had already topped the century mark a half-dozen times that summer, I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
These people had never seen hot.
Situated in the western mountains of Maine, Farmington sits about an hour-and-a-half south of the Canadian border and an hour-and-a-half east of New Hampshire’s famed White Mountains.
Summer temperatures rarely top 80 degrees and as a result, most homes don’t even bother with air conditioning.
People start to head to the beach when the mercury reaches 70, which doesn’t usually come until sometime in mid-July.
Despite their low tolerance to warm weather, one thing Mainers can handle is snow. And the cold.
They embrace it. Of course, they don’t have much choice.
During the course of my first winter in Maine, we saw more than 70 inches of snow - more than I had ever seen in my entire life growing up in Oklahoma. Of course, we nearly froze to death that first winter.
I remember one particular week in January when the temperature never got above zero. It was so cold my face hurt just to walk from the house to the car. Literally, my face hurt from the cold.
There was snow on the ground at Halloween and it remained on the ground until well after the Easter holiday.
My sons wore winter coats and stocking caps to play spring baseball and they weren’t allowed to come to school unless they had snow pants and snow boots to change into for recess.
And they always went outside for recess.
The first time we saw sparks flying from the highway snow plow, we panicked. Within a few weeks, we would let out a cheer every time one passed us in the opposite lane.
Locals took the blustery weather in stride, but it took my family about a year to get acclimated to the climate and even then it was a difficult process.
I should have purchased stock in Freeport, Maine-based L.L. Bean. Between the coats and hats and gloves and boots and earmuffs, we spent a fortune fortifying ourselves for the winter.
By the time the following spring rolled around, we were wearing short-sleeve shirts when the temperatures reached the freezing mark and our kids went swimming at Old Orchard Beach in June when it was barely 60 degrees outside.
By the time summer rolled around, 70 degrees felt pretty darn good. In fact, it felt too good.
I didn’t even want to turn on the oven. It was just unbearable.
-o00o-
The same thing happened (except in reverse fashion) when I moved from Maine to Iowa.
It was the first week of August and I was so excited about being back amidst the sunshine that I broke out our push lawnmower the first weekend there.
It was 98 degrees outside and it was with great pride that I rolled up my sleeves, tugged the starter rope and made the first pass across the abnormally large back yard.
Sweat began to pour off my brow, I was having a hard time breathing and by the third pass, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
I nonchalantly made my way to the back porch of the house and stumbled inside and collapsed on the carpet - just out of view of my neighbors who had gathered at the fence to watch the idiot from Maine mow his lawn in the middle of the afternoon.
“This is just unbearable,” I muttered to myself.
-o00o-
This week’s frigid temperatures here in the Pine Belt created quite a buzz around our office.
Stories of winter storms past and adventures in Mississippi sleet and ice were tossed around like well-packed snowballs.
A little research showed that Mississippi’s record snowfall came in the winter of 1962-63 when some 80 inches of snow dropped on the Magnolia State.
We didn’t get any snow this go around, but the biting wind was enough to send me running for my winter coat, which had somehow been misplaced.
Even Elvis the Cat knows it’s cold outside. Rather than bound out the back door to chase a squirrel like usual, he’s content in burying his face in the blankets and cozying up with the pillows on the couch.
I can’t say I blame him. Most mornings, I’d rather do the same.
The good news is that we know it won’t stick around long. In fact, I imagine we’ll all be complaining by the end of next week about us having to turn on the air conditioner already.
Until then, can we all just agree on one thing about this weather?
After all...
It’s just unbearable.
Gustafson once spent a week in Maui where he experienced what he considers to be “perfect” weather: sunshine, temps in the mid-to-upper 80s, a daily mid-morning light rain, and a cool ocean breeze. When he’s not dreaming of Kaanapali, he’s the not-so-mild-mannered editor/publisher of The PineBelt NEWS.
