Memories of Lake Havasu City

It was one of those days. One of those days when it seemed like the sun woke up early. I don’t think he meant to, though. I think it was the infernal racket of a townful of folks trying to get something done before it got too danged hot to even think about working. But, whatever the cause, Sol was definitely awake. And he was not happy. He spent a little while sulking redly behind a scruffy haze that probably owed more to desert dust than to future raindrops. But it didn’t take long for something (who knows what?) to set him off, and then he broke out of his bad mood and roared into a worse one. If you were lucky enough to find some shade, his rage topped-out at around 126 degrees. No one bothered (or maybe they didn’t dare) to measure or guess how hot he thundered out in the open.

It was one of those days when blacktop got soft enough to flow ever-so-slowly down the steep hills, leaving small ripples in the surface of the streets. A solo trail of lonely footprints crossed one gooey boulevard, as though some minor messiah had walked miraculously on its wavy, black surface. Perhaps he braved the sunstorm to rejoin and reassure some heat-prostrate disciples. If so, he still did nothing to calm the solar tempest.

It was one of those days that made you glad you’d turned off the water heater a few weeks ago. On a day like this, water pouring from the “cold” spigot could scald you. It was good to have a tankful of water cooling down so you could turn on the “hot” faucet to temper the boiling output of the “cold” one.

It was one of those days when you no longer cared that no matter how much sunlight fell on your driveway, you never had to shovel it.

It was one of those days in summertime Arizona…