Summer's secret joys not for the faint of heart

By JEFF KLINKENBERG

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 6, 2000

Summer bummer The soul-frying 94-day ordeal known as summer began in the waning hours of June 20 in the eastern United States, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Its official end is September 22.

Floridians have become a delicate folk, complaining about alligators, rain and honest sweat. "Will summer ever end?" they whine, and I want to box their talcum-powdered ears.

All the while the typical male corporate type shows up at work dressed in a wool suit when it's 92 degrees out. His female counterpart wears the same, without the necktie but with the likely fashion accessory of pantyhose.

In the elevator the dressed-for-success smart set sniffs the air for body odor, probably mine. I'm a Florida boy who doesn't mind a drop or two of the salty stuff, summer perfume.

One of the joys of summer is the opportunity to sweat without guilt. Also, I like sabotaging the dress code.

Every August, Stanley Kowalski, as played by Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, once again becomes my hero. Not because he portrays a brute, but because he knows exactly how to dress, strutting around sweltering New Orleans in cotton slacks and a T-shirt.

I never thought of my conservative dad as a Stanley clone until I remembered his summer threads, or lack of them. At home, where we didn't get air conditioning until I was a teen, he stayed barefoot and shirtless May through September. Wise fellow. Smart Florida men should dress like slobs during summer. A Florida gal needs a sensible cotton dress -- the kind Marilyn Monroe wore in The Seven Year Itch. Here it won't be a gust from a passing subway that shows her bare legs but a breeze from a summer squall.

I like summer thunderstorms, provided I'm not in my canoe casting for snook or redfish in a skeeter-infested mangrove creek. I've been known to drive my truck to the waterfront during those awesome frog-stranglers to wince at the crash of thunder while studying the sky for funnel clouds. At night I enjoy falling asleep when lightning flashes in the distance. Modern Florida has become too civilized; summer weather is a reminder that nature still is in control.

So is the presence of alligators. One morning last month I ambled into a park five minutes from my office to look for alligator nests. I found a huge pile of rotting vegetation within spitting distance of a swamp boardwalk, and a moment later spotted the 9-foot mama sprawled nearby.

I wondered if she remembered last summer, when she was compelled to discipline me after I'd gotten foolishly close to the same nest. Her mighty hiss from beneath the boardwalk was a warning from the Mesozoic, from 200-million years of evolutionary history. The rest of the day, even the part when I wrote on my computer in an air-conditioned office, I felt wild and primitive.

Alligators are to Florida what grizzlies are to Montana. If I moved to the Rockies, I would have to live with the possibility of encountering Ursus arctos horribilis. I'd know that if my dog ventured deep into the woods she might be devoured. In Florida, when summer alligators become rambunctious, some of us are shocked that puppies are on the menu.

I love Montana, yet I don't think I'd choose winter residency. If I had to live there, to whom would I complain? To some grizzled cowboy stoic? Would he respect the weepy Florida tenderfoot who was a wee bit cold? Nope. He'd squint and spit -- the saliva freezing in mid-air -- and say, "Pilgrim, cold comes with the territory." And he'd be right. Hot comes with Florida territory.

I have become an expert on shade over my half-century of Florida summers. I love nothing more than dragging a folding chair and a book into a park and camping out for the afternoon under a fine oak. Shade is harder to come by in the city, of course. And cities always feel hotter than the country to me. Parking lots hang onto the heat like a wood stove.

At least we have air conditioning, though it's a curse as well as a blessing. It has made Florida summers bearable for millions of new residents who move here and want to make it Wisconsin-comfortable. Meanwhile, those of us who once did fine without AC discover we're addicted, too. Newcomers and old-timers both sprint from one air-conditioned cocoon to another as if the God-given outside air were poisonous.

Still, I ride my bike or jog every morning during summer. Can't say I always enjoy it, but I tell myself that if I can run or bike here, in August, I can run or cycle anywhere, anytime.

Perhaps that's the ultimate reason for loving a Florida summer: It builds character.

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