Coffee heat rising

Glenn Gunnells

Hotter Than the Hubs…

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Jayzuz, it’s HOT out there!

Actually, it’s not so very hot: it’s kinda humid. In Arizona, humidity makes a warm day feel hotter than a by-gawd. Wunderground says the temp just now is only 94 degrees. Which for an Arizona mid-day is NOT very hot.

We’ve got 25% humidity, though. That’s fairly soggy, as an Arizona day goes.

I grew up in lovely Saudi Arabia: on the shore of the Persian Gulf. Days like this were normal in that garden spot. Seriously: I’ve seen it so humid that rain would start to fall out of a clear blue sky.

Kinda doubt that we’ll see that phenomenon here, though. It just ain’t a-gonna get that humid in lovely uptown Arizona: ever.

Ugh! Ten years of living in Arabia must have been an extended species of torture for my poor mother! She was an Upstate New York girl. There, we’re told, summer temperatures range from upper 70s to the mid-80s. I can’t imagine how she survived in the Hell that was Ras Tanura.

Honestly, today she’d be scared to death, what with the threats of war and actual attacks on the refinery. By this point, though, my father probably would have sent her and me back to the States. Probably wouldn’t have left, himself….he earned a stupefying salary and wouldn’t have been quick to abandon it.

At any rate…a hot, muggy day like this reminds me — if distantly — of those ugly days in Saudi Arabia.

One of the best things my father did for me and my mother was to send us back to the United States three months before he left that living Hell out there. We landed in San Francisco, my mother rented a nice apartment in a compound called Parkmerced, and then put me into an excellent public school. I really did enjoy that place…and given a chance and a choice, I’d go back there in an instant!

What a relief, to get out of the Hell that was the Ras Tanura Senior Staff School. Hell populated by nasty little devils led by morons pretending to be teachers….

I loved living in Parkmerced — one of the few things that made me happy at any time during my childhood. And really: given a chance, I’d go back there right now.

San Francisco! That’s the place!

 

 

Swampy-Dampy Day!

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Ugh!!  Just back from the morning doggy-walk. What an AWFUL, swampy, icky morning! The sky is gray with high clouds. And those clouds have spawned a mass of hot, wet, soggy air: deposited on the ground where humans and dawgs like to stroll.

A walk out there feels like a stroll along the shore of the horrible, wet, sticky Persian Gulf…surely one of the most horrific venues ever occupied by humans.

We spent nine years in that ghastly place — in (un)lovely Saudi Arabia — until my mother’s health failed and my father was forced to quit his (handsomely paid!) job to bring us back to the States.

Most of the time, Arizona’s climate is reasonably livable. The hellish summers are attenuated by air-conditioning. Most of the time.

Yeah. Until you arrive at August or so. Then it gets wet and soggy and icky and HOT HOT HOT.

Most of the gringos leave the state in the summertime. If they’re working, they take vacation then and head into the mountains. If they’re retired, they jump in their cars and drive back to the Midwestern states whence most of them emanated, where they spend July and August.

Me, I have no such place to go. Plus growing up in hideous Saudi Arabia accustomed me to hot, soggy summers…so this place doesn’t seem all that bad to me.

Where would I go, if I’d ever had my choice?

San Francisco. Right now, today, right this minute.

My mother’s relatives lived in the Bay Area — in Berkeley, an enclave of the upper-middle-class — and when my father sent us back to the States (she was too ill to stay in Arabia, and had to be treated for her raging case of amoebic dysentery in a Stateside hospital), we landed in San Francisco. Temporarily.

So that got me away from the nasty brats in the Ras Tanura Senior Staff School, and got her more or less recovered (sorta).

Once she brought us home, she refused to go back to the Middle East. So my father was forced to quit his handsomely paying blue-collar job to join us in California and ship out of Long Beach. (He was a Merchant Marine pilot.)

Shortly, they discovered Sun City. Think of the joy: hopelessly whitey-white and no kids! 

One garden spot after another, eh?

Seriously: he didn’t much like kids (unless they were of the Boy Scout variety), and they wouldn’t dream of living anywhere near a place where a single brown face dwelt.

Anyway: Here I am, trapped in Arizona. They sent me to school in Tucson. Shortly after graduating from the University of Arizona, I married a lawyer who was moving up through a prominent regional firm. And that was it: yep, here I am. Stuck in the middle of the road…

Days like this lead me to truly hate this place. The heat, the soggy air, the fine developers’ monotony. Ugly air, ugly houses, on and tediously on.

I do miss the Bay Area, and surely would move back there if my son weren’t here and (heh!!) if I could afford it.

Failing that, parts of Southern Colorado strike me as livable. And any number of smaller towns along the West Coast.

My mother loved it here, though. That little house in Sun City was my father’s gift to her. And she did appreciate it.

She even contrived to force herself to like the gawdawful racket from the warplanes flying out of Luke Air Force Base. “Ohhhhh,” she would simper, “it’s the sound of freedom!”

Uhhhh…no, Mom. that’s the sound of World War III, headed our way.

Anyhow…that’s how I got here… Dragged against my wishes and deposited in the desert. Sent off to a third-rate school after I’d spent three years planning and preparing to go to UC Berkeley. And married firmly into MittelAmerica.

My son is here, and I ain’t leavin’ as long as he stays in Arizona. So…yeah. Here I am.

Horrible place.

Melted!!!

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Argh! I overestimated the heat when I went for today’s exercise stroll. As we scribble, Wunderground claims the temp is 111 just now. “Feels like 117.”

Is THAT all?

Yeah…well, I’d have guessed 119. 😀

It feels like freaking Saudi Arabia out there, where we lived on the edge of the Persian Gulf: hot, humid, and suffocating. And yes, that place was capable of reaching 120 degrees. Nooooo problem!

So, 117 degrees doesn’t seem THAT out of the ordinary. Eh?

This is one of many days that make me wish I were back in San Francisco. Where I belong.

Ohhh well. That ain’t ever gonna happen again. My son is here, and I’m not leaving as long as that’s the fact.

{sigh}

Most of the time, Arizona has a tolerable climate. It does get absurdly hot in the summertime, as we can see by today’s balmy afternoon. But the winters are lovely, as are most of the spring and fall days.

That notwithstanding, I do wish my parents had never discovered Sun City, the garden spot that drew them here. Boyoboy! Imagine a whole gigantic subdivision where NO KIDS ARE ALLOWED!

Goodie.

You were allowed to live there if your brats were over 18 or off in college. I was 16.  So…

They engineered a deal with the University of Arizona whereby I would start my freshman year there a year early. So it went: I dropped out of high school at the end of my junior year, and they dragged me to Arizona. Soon as we got here, they exiled me to Tucson.

That I was all set to go to UC Berkeley the following year meant nothing to my father. (Well…he himself was a high-school dropout, and the truth was he understood little or nothing about universities and university education…) They yanked me out of school, sent me off to Tucson, and with great delight moved themselves into a pleasant tract house under the flight path of the war planes from Luke Air Force Base.

The cute little Sun City house was my father’s lifetime gift to her. And she was SO delighted with it! Seriously: she even made herself relish the roar of those damn fighter jets: as the pilots practiced, she’d sit out on the back porch in the morning sipping her coffee and simper, “Ohhhh! it’s the sound of freedom!”

Yeah, Mom… The sound of World War III comin’ our way…

She loved it, though. So it was a beautiful thing he did for her, after decades of marriage living in difficult conditions.

Charging off to college a year early was a nice ego trip for me…though it wasn’t the greatest of all possible ideas. At 16, I really was too young to go off by myself. I did OK — the UofA was hardly the most challenging of all possible higher ed institutions.  But I would have been better off waiting a year or two. And FAR better off going to one of the University of California campuses.

Not that I did all that poorly: I did graduate Phi Beta Kappa. But my social life left something to be desired. Like, for example…a social life.

So…heh! I guess you could say my life was melted. Just as I was melted by today’s blasting heat on the sidewalks of the ‘Hood.

And that was one of the first reasons that the phrase “I hate Arizona” became my byword. 

How I Got to Arizona…

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And  now, after yesterday’s astonishing mercury level, it’s only 108° in shade of the back porch. That’s comin’ on to 5:00 p.m.

Brrr! Get out the sweaters!

Can  you imagine? Honestly! I could brain my parents for dragging me to this hellish place. They made me skip my senior year in high school, betook themselves to Sun City, and shipped me off to the University of Arizona in Tucson. This, so that my father could retire to Sun City.

Understand: I planned to attend the University of California at Berkeley…and was well on my way to qualifying for that when they yanked me out of high school.

Did they understand that there was a qualitative difference between the universities?

My mother certainly did. I doubt if my father did — or if he cared. He wasn’t interested in giving me a fancy education. He was interested in retiring. ASAP.

What a mean thing to do to me, after I’d worked my butt off through high school to get into Berkeley!

Did he understand that? Sorta. Kinda. But…I doubt it.

He was a blue-collar boy, through and through. In fact, I’m not sure he even graduated from high school. The minute he qualified to get into the military, he joined the Navy. From there (his health sagging), he went into the Coast Guard. After that, the rest of his work life was dedicated to the Merchant Marine. Well…except for the ten hellish years with Saudi Aramco.

He did pretty well in the Merchant Marine, by the way. Especially for a guy who had exactly zero higher education.

Give him credit: he paid for all four years of my time at the University of Arizona. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and, after marrying a lawyer, transitioned into a Ph.D. program at Arizona State University.

But…know that it had been understood that after high school I would go to Berkeley, move into with my great-aunt and great-grandmother in their  bungalow (which had room to accommodate me nicely), and get the bachelor’s degree from the University of California.

Which, we might say (by way of understatement), was a far cry from the U of A. And an even farther cry from ASU.  Did he know that? Well…I kinda doubt it.

He was a workin’-class boy; grew up in Texas chasing the rear ends of cows until he made his escape by running off to the Navy.

And he was not about to diddle away his retirement cache to send his girl child to some fancy college. After all, what was a girl supposed to grow up to do? Be a wife and mother, of course. And ya sure didn’t need a college degree for that!

Today the UofA has a much improved reputation, regarded as one of the top 25 U.S. universities by Times Higher Education. Well…it wasn’t like that then: back in the day it was renowned as a party school. And I got in a year early with a middling-high grade average after three years of taking five solids in high school.

The upshot was that I landed a degree from what was then a mediocre institution but what is now pretty well regarded. Who’s to know, eh?

So…here we are in 2026, still in Arizona.

Do I regret not going to UC Berkeley?  Damn right!

Do I regret taking three degrees from the University of Arizona and Arizona State University?  Not really.

Hey. It’s better than nothin’, eh? 😉

Those degrees did get me a high-test husband and a university faculty job, so I can’t complain too much.

But still…sometimes I do wonder what would have been the outcome if even one of those degrees had come from Berkeley.

Well. We’ll never know. 

A Rasty-Nasty Day!

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Whew!!!  It is BEYOND hotter than the Hubs of Hades out there!! In the deepest shade of the back porch: a hundred and eleven degrees! 

My father would have called this a Rasty Nasty Day, after Ras Tanura, the hideous American oil outpost where we lived on the shore of the Persian Gulf. Twelve long years in that unholy dive!!!  He had figured he’d make enough to retire, if they saved every penny, in eight or ten years. Yeah…

Well…he almost made enough to retire on.

He wasn’t a real educated fella. Inflation, for example, was kind of an alien concept for him…  So, when he made his calculations for how long he’d have to work out there before he could retire and take us home to the States, he missed his goal by some six years.

About the time this projection unwound, my mother came down with a horrific case of amoebic dysentery. The doctors out there told her she needed to go back to the States –ASAP — to be treated for that fine ailment. This gave her an excuse to grab me and flee back to California, where her relatives lived. It also accelerated his retirement plans: he stayed for another year and a half, until his current contract ended, and then came back to join us in the States.

So that was a blessing (big-time!) for me and my mother. Couldn’t have been great for him, but at least she and I got out of that Hell-hole.

At any rate, where we lived on the shore of the Persian Gulf, the climate was hot, muggy, humid, and hotter than the Hubs. Just a HORRIBLE place, certainly for the gringo set. As a little kid, I didn’t know any better. But my mother, raised in Upstate New York, suffered terribly — from the climate as well as from the endemic disease.

And now, here on August 23 of Two Thousand and Twenty-Six, I indeed have been around long enough to know better. And believe me: if my son weren’t here, I would not be here in steamy Arizona. No how, no way!

But he persists, because his dad is here. His dad  persists, because Dad’s job planted him here…and because his present family is also planted here.

Well. Arizona ain’t as grim as Saudi Arabia was. But…it does have its trying moments.

And right now, we’re in the middle of them! 

What He Knew She Went Through…

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As my mother lay shucking off her last hours on her deathbed, I approached and tried to offer some comfort. Angrily — furiously! — my father physically chased me off. He wouldn’t even let me come into her bedroom.

He never was especially empathetic to me. I believe he always saw me as a weird little kid — which I was, to a degree. But not allowing me to be with my mother as she lay dying? Not even after she had said she wanted me there?

WTF? How cruel could a man get?

During all these years that have passed since then, I’ve resented him for chasing me away from her. I’ve thought (as I’d often thought in other circumstances) that he hated me because I was a weird little girl. And because of my eccentricity, he didn’t want me around her.

No kidding: decades have passed, and those decades did nothing to offer any insight to what he might have been feeling.

Recently, though, an insight has snuck into my feeble little mind.

He didn’t want me around her because he didn’t want my last memories of her to be utterly hideous. As they would have been, had I lingered by her bedside until she died.

She didn’t even know I was there, so out-of-it was she. So…what reason (other than to make me miserable) for me to linger by her bedside as she slid into death?

Now, in retrospect, I think he didn’t want me there because he didn’t want me to go through watching her die of a ghastly enteric cancer. The vomiting. The horror. The agony. Dear God!

He wasn’t a real articulate guy. It would have been exceptionally difficult for him to have said that to me outright. But now, after year and year and year have passed, it strikes me: what we were looking at was hideous. Truly hideous: a ghastly death by cancer. The best thing that could have happened to me, during that unholy ordeal, was to have been kept away from it.

And that is what he did.

He stood between me and the worst moments of my mother’s dying. And that, God bless him, was probably the kindest thing he ever did for me.