The thermometer on the back porch in the shade is reading 102. These are truly the lazy days of summer. In this heat you just want to sit very still under a fan. You don’t want to talk. You don’t even want to turn the pages of a book. Simply breathing seems to make you sweat.

I read a book recently suggesting we should all quit using our air conditioners and go back to old time methods of staying cool. I’m betting that writer never spent a summer in Oklahoma. I’m all for green living, but I won’t be shutting off the air conditioner any time soon. I prefer to stay alive than expire from heat exhaustion.

Even the Oklahoma breeze doesn’t help. As one weather forecaster said on the evening news last night, “this wind feels like a blow dryer.” I always liken the Oklahoma wind on a hot summer day to being cooked on a rotisserie over an open fire.

So, here’s to summer, triple digit temperatures, and Willis Haviland Carrier, the man who invented air conditioning.