The Smoking (Hot) Summer

“Should we talk about the weather?”

--R.E.M., “Pop Song ‘89”

Hotter Than Hell

--Kiss CD title

Time’s up, my friends.

It’s June. It’s summer.

In my part of the United States, Wisconsin and the flyover country of the Midwest, summer really begins with a fierce drinking contest called Summerfest. This year’s run is later in June, and will leave the problem of how to dispose of several hundred thousand plastic beer cups…but at least you can smoke there, as it is an outdoor event.

I’ve always been conflicted about summer. Thanks to the invention of life-saving air conditioning, I usually don’t have to deal with the worst of the season’s heat and humidity--but it does run up the electric bill. Thanks to the (sometimes) pleasant weather, clothes and inhibitions are shucked off--but this results, on occasion, in fights and accidents. And then there is the constant presence of frustrating road construction.

Smoking provides a balm to the problems of the season (and any season). But because of humidity and heat, I find my smoking adjusting to the temperature. In oppressive conditions, I find I just don’t want a burning bowl of tobacco next to me, I’m ashamed to say. Somehow, smoking a pipe in the guts of summer’s heat seems too…heavy, too thick. I get over this feeling with air conditioning, happily. But firing up my briar in the back yard, taking a break from mowing the lawn on a 95 degree day? Adding more heat to the damn furnace? Forget it--I’ll take a smoke break in my nice, cool kitchen. Cool off a bit, before going back outside and having the heat and humidity hit me like a wool blanket. (An exception: At an Arab World Festival a few years ago, my long-suffering wife and I rented a hookah, a water pipe from that part of the globe. The smoke from this pipe, coming from a long tube, was cooled by the contraption’s water, and was very enjoyable on a hot day at the lakefront).

Cigarettes are perfect for this season--quick, disposable, no fussing with pipe cleaners and tampers and such. They do not seem too heavy and thick to smoke. And wouldn’t that plastic cup, filled with cold beer, go great with a cig? Adding the cigarette’s smoke to the scents of summer--popcorn, cut grass, fried food, cotton candy, sweat--would be a pleasure, and appropriate, as would be seeing the thin, gray smoke float slowly in the steaming air.

There are some memories from summer that I cherish. I was married on an August day in 1997. In the long-ago 80s, I spent a scorching week at the legendary World Affairs Seminar in Whitewater, Wisconsin. Mostly, though, it’s my least-favorite season, too hot, too sticky, too uncomfortable.

And flip-flops. And tornadoes. And the syrupy days when motivation is smothered by humidity. And groceries expiring in the trunk of the car.

Three more months until autumn, the pipe-smoking season, and sanity--cool sanity.