From the Managing Editor:
No bark, no bite
Ahh... the famous dog days of summer -- even if this summer it's felt more like we were living in Minnesota than Mississippi. All those dire warnings about global warming have failed to materialize in the Delta this year. I can't remember a summer so cool and pleasant in all my years. My parents, who have lived here for what they say seems like forever, likewise agree with this assessment. The only time they can remember a July this pleasant was the summer they lived in New Zealand and of course the seasons were reversed and July was the middle of winter!
Now don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not complaining. I'm relatively cheerful about facing a not-so-scorching hot summer day out on the lake with a couple of coolers and a gang of friends, but it won't be exactly the same if the bikinis are replaced by overcoats and the beverages tend toward coffee and hot chocolate. I guess this is what summer in Iowa must feel like -- the soybeans (up until the last little dry spell) all green and lush, the lakes cool enough to swim in without looking for the cold spots, and the nights tending toward blankets more than air conditioning.
I never saw the worth of a convertible in Mississippi until this year. With our mild winter and this amazing summer, you could legitimately have gotten some serious usage out of a rag-top over the last nine months. And our motorcycle-riding friends must be reveling in the joys of the open road complete with free air conditioning.
I'm also just going to hope that it doesn't mean the doves will reschedule their annual migration to the Delta. While I certainly wouldn't mind a cool day on the dove fields, the prospect of spending that sort of day without seeing any doves leaves me cold - sorry about the pun. Likewise our other hunting seasons are always set with an eye toward the weather, and if current weather conditions persist we might need to reschedule duck season for October.
I just hope that Mother Nature won't pay us back by giving us our allotment of 100 degree days in September. I should probably have contacted NOAA so I could quote you some statistics, but sometimes just the feeling of a thing is all you need to be understood, and surely any long-time Delta resident will know exactly what I'm talking about. It will be really interesting to see if this summer scenario repeats itself next year. My father always moans when he recalls how fickle the summer weather can be. For years he suffered through summer drought after summer drought until finally he’d had enough and one spring borrowed a chunk of cash to have a central pivot irrigation system installed on our farm. You guessed it, that next summer it seemed that it rained twice a week every week.
Oh, well, I guess if we didn’t have the weather to fuss and debate about we’d just be grousing over politics and the economy even more. The one thing for sure about our summer climate is that we’ll never be able to truly know what to expect. So, you transplants from up North who are thinking you now know what a Mississippi summer is like, don't get your hopes up. The likelihood that a weather pattern like this as will repeat lies somewhere between nil and zero. Enjoy it while it's here. DBJ
Joe Meek
Managing Editor
