(Ode to a Sacramento summer)

We knew it’d show up eventually,
after weeks of saying to each other,
“Perfect weather, isn’t it?” and
“Best summer I can remember.”

Because we live in a land of too hot,
a state of hot-hot, with the always-
hottest place in our southern desert
that’s got the word “death” in it.

But here—near the top of California’s
great central valley, where sizzling
spots like Red Bluff often win the prize
for hottest in these parts—this week

we enter the landscape of century
temps. We avoid the eastern and
southern humidity, but boy, can we
cook. And boy, are we about to.

Which is why God, in the guise of
Willis Carrier, created in 1902
a system to control temps and
humidity in a Brooklyn print shop,

though it wasn’t until 1906 that
engineer Stuart Cramer dubbed it
air conditioning. Think about that,
friends, when we step outside

into 100 degrees, then turn our
sweaty selves ’round and head back
in, offering our perspiry thanks
to Messrs. Carrier and Cramer

and the kabillions of their
descendant engineers and
technicians working to ensure
that we stay cool, baby—

real cool.