Hot Summer Days Then and Now

This week I longed for the bookmobile of my youth. That mobile library visited our road every few weeks during the summer months. The date and time was always noted on the calendar.

During its visit, I stocked up on a half dozen or more books that I'd read on hot, summer afternoons. Our house had no air conditioning, but a finished basement was the perfect place for reading. I read dozens of biographies, horse stories, fiction and mysteries during those summers.

The library called and notified that a book I'd had on hold finally came in this week. The library is 11 miles away, and I have trouble justifying a trip to town just to pick up a book, and it's simply too hot for a bike ride. If only the bookmobile was making a visit, I thought.

I finally picked up the book today. As the temperatures climbed past 100 degrees for the second day in a row, I longed for a finished basement.

Our old farmhouse doesn't have air conditioning, and, so I found myself sitting on a chair, ceiling fan above me and fan in front of me, reading the afternoon away.