Hot weather like we're having requires cold meals. I've done cold potato soup and gazpacho and last night was chicken salad. (And potato chips--a traditional accompaniment and rare indulgence.)
As we sat on the porch watching veils of rain sweep across the valley and disappear, we remembered another hot summer.
It was the summer of 1966, the last three months of John's enlistment in the Marines, and he was stationed at an air base in Beaufort, SC. (That's Byew-fort, not Bow-fort. Bow-fort is in NC.) We were in half of a non-air conditioned duplex and it was godawful hot.
I evolved a routine of preparing dinner in the early morning before the house heated up, then spending the rest of the day reading in a hammock out under a big oak.
We cycled through chicken salad, tuna salad, and shrimp salad, broken by chicken or hamburgers done outside on a hibachi.
When the heat was unbearable, sometimes we went to a movie (air-conditioned!) The movies changed once a week, but sometimes we saw the same movie twice.
There was a Dairy Queen across the street that we patronized. Our dog Juno , we learned, was also a patron--on the lookout for kids who might drop their ice cream if bumped. And sometimes she bumped them.
On John's days off, we went to a mostly deserted beach and set up camp in the dunes. We could often see porpoises frolicking close to shore. It was pretty idyllic.
By the end of the summer, John had been accepted at University of South Florida and had turned down an offer to re-enlist and go to Officers' Training School. I had my teaching position (Mistress of English) at Berkeley Prep in Tampa to return to and the future was set--for a few more years, at least.
Old times they are not forgotten.
