Fifty years ago this summer, a folk-revival group–turned–rock band had a hit that colonized the airwaves. All aroun’, people lookin’ half dead, walkin’ on the sidewalk hotter than a match head. Still true, gentlemen.
Meteorology and media work together to make the days seem even more inhospitable; the thermometer says x, but the geek, adding factors y and z, says the temperature really feels like x plus 10. X plus 10 screams the weather app and, for oldsters, the front page of the next day’s tabloid. But x is plenty bad. The first Europeans to settle on these shores could not believe the extremes of normal American climate. The cold of winter was more immediately deadly, but summer’s heat was enervating, punishing. For centuries, Americans refused to adjust their habits to the new reality; D. W. Brogan, a sympathetic Englishman of the last century, noted that as late as 1925 William Jennings Bryan caused comment by appearing in court during the Scopes trial in shirt sleeves. Now celebrities take nude selfies for slight or no reason. The sun still regards them pitilessly.
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