Oh,The Miserable Heat

Fred the Frog by Ron Keller, July, 2007

I think Fred, our resident frog, has a good idea in his quest to "beat the heat"! You have to find a shady spot by a pond and then when it gets too hot, take a dip in the water.


As kids in Colorado, when it got hot we'd go out under the shade trees and sit on the blanket and play cards, read a book, and drink Kool-aid Mom made with lemonade (so we didn't get too much sugar) and tell stories. Because of water rationing there were only certain days we could water the lawn and only during certain hours of the day...usually very early in the morning or very late afternoon. That pretty much precluded the opportunity of running through the sprinkler because then it was too cool in the day.


Our basement was the coolest and the "coolest" place in the house. The card table nearly always had a jigsaw puzzle on it to be put together or the ping pong table was up so we could play. Scrabble was always the game of choice when we played games with Mom. That way we could play the game, practice spelling and learn new words at the same time.


Rita and I would play jacks together. Sitting on the cool tile floor was grand and we laughed at MY usual clumsy mistakes. She was so much better at jacks than I was.


In the evenings we would play catch with the baseball or bat around the badminton birdy. OH!! Hide and Seek after dark is the so much fun...as was playing tag!!! We didn't have fire flies in Colorado or you can only imagine how much fun I would have had chasing those!!!


I invite you all to take some time today, in all this heat,to reflect and reminisce about other hot summers and how you entertained yourself. And then if you can...take a tip from Fred! Go take a dip in the pond.

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Thanks Be To God!!