Sunday, July 6, 2025

Summer bares its teeth in various ways

The Gulf moisture has returned, and it surely feels as though another classic Mid South summer is upon us.  So far the conditions aren't the most insufferable I've ever experienced, but it wouldn't take but a small upward tweak to produce something much more oppressive.  I guess we have an advantage around here in that we're used to dealing with high heat and humidity; most homes and businesses here are equipped with air conditioning, for instance.  What was so bad about that heat wave that hit much of the nation a couple of weeks ago is that its affected area included the upper Midwest, where many people don't have AC.  The weather here in Memphis today would be tough indeed if I couldn't retreat into my air-conditioned home.

Meanwhile, parts of the country are dealing with another kind of meteorological ordeal: too much rain.  I made a very cursory visit to the Texas hill country back in the late 1980s, but otherwise have no experience with the area.  Nevertheless, I feel a bit of a connection to the region that has been devastated by flooding this weekend: when I was doing a lot of whitewater slalom racing in the 1990s, I knew a group of Texans who spent a lot of time training on the Guadalupe River, the drainage that has seen a lot of the worst flooding; and as summer camp alumnus myself, I feel empathy for those hill country camps that have lost campers and staff.  Camp for me was nothing if not a safe haven, and the idea of a natural disaster laying waste to the property in the middle of the night while camp is in session is hard for me to comprehend.

As of this writing I haven't heard the latest news, but another part of the country, on the coast of the Carolinas, is also dealing with heavy rainfall from Tropical Storm Chantal.

All I can say is that things aren't so bad here where I live, and for me life goes on as normal.  Yesterday I paddled the surfski and found some decent surfing out on the Mississippi.  When I reached the mouth of the harbor a small barge rig was moving upriver, and I ferried out to catch a few brief rides on the modest waves it was producing.  At the same time there was a much larger rig coming downstream, and when it reached my location I fell in behind it.  The waves were full of squirrelly water--typical of southbound rigs--and they were also wandering left and right at odd angles as the towboat pilot made the giant slalom move defined by the Hernando DeSoto Bridge upstream of us and the Harahan and Frisco and Memphis-Arkansas Bridges down below.  But they gave me some pretty exciting rides.  Each time I caught one angling toward the left bank, say, I looked for one angling back the other way that I could link onto.

This morning I opted to paddle the whitewater boat and do some drills within sight of the marina.  The sun was hot and bright, and I did a lot of my work in the shade beneath the A.W. Willis Avenue bridge.  I did all kinds of forward stroke drills, backpaddling drills, spin drills, blade-control drills, and Eskimo rolls.

Both paddling sessions this weekend made me good and wet, and that's something I welcome at this time of year.  I finished them both with a hose bath on the dock, and I'll take that over some chi-chi spa every time.


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