By Scott Graber
It is Sunday, hot, and there is a heat advisory in place.
Here in Beaufort a “heat advisory” means the upper 90s and today’s Post and Courier promises 96 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sometimes — however — there is a late afternoon cloudburst.
That dousing of cold water is welcomed because it brings maybe an hour of slightly cooler temperatures — a golden moment when one might run into the yard, throw back one’s head, extend one’s arms, and gratefully endure a pelting by these little, heaven-sent bullets of relief.
When I was a boy we spent every summer at Ocean Drive Beach in a two storied cottage on the second row. There was no air conditioning, but I can’t ever remember being innervated, sleep deprived or depressed.
I do remember being sun-burned and lying spread eagle on Noxema-scented sheets.
My father told me that children have an excellent vascular system that cools the body as though there were millions of pipes that automatically widen and then transport the heat from the inner body to the surface of the skin.
When we age that vasco-enlargement cooling system falters and we remain hot instinctively seeking out the nearest mechanical compressor. We are urged to drink liquids and stay recumbent which, I must confess, was easier with the diversions of the World Cup.
And how about those Cape Verde boys!
This is not our first summer in Beaufort and we are not naive about the misery attached to our months-long season of discontent and despair. We know that once locals — especially the tattered, postbellum aristocracy — took refuge in the Blue Ridge.
When we first came to town we heard stories of folks who packed-up their family, their African American servants, and some of their silverware in June taking a train up to Saluda or Hendersonville or Asheville.
These folks had rambling, rustic, exposed-beam houses at an elevation of 3,000 feet and were eager for the cooler temperatures — maybe 70 degree at noon — and evenings that required a small fire in their flagstone hearths.
By the time Susan and I arrived in town that option — leaving town — was only available to the “Plantation Society” that still survived in and around Sheldon, Coosawhatchie and throughout Jasper County. These old-monied folk packed up their horses, dogs and Wellies and headed for Boothbay, Castine or Yarmouth where they stayed put until October. Actually they returned the second week in October when, parenthetically, the State Fair opened in Columbia.
The only consolation for the rest of us was the fact that the Maine-bred mosquito is larger and more aggressive than our own winged, blood-seeking variety.
Besides the Water Festival (in July) there wasn’t a whole lot to do if you did it out of doors. One could swim; but that required some time on the beach and almost any exposure (to the sun) was a prescription for melanoma, sun-stroke and the worship of Moloch. In olden days it was also the time of malaria and yellow fever and the predictable, pathogen-promoted thinning-out during our “sickly season.”
Susan and I arrived in Beaufort in 1970 and lived on the first floor of the Cuthbert-Scheper antebellum house at 915 Port Republic Street. We rented from the venerable and wonderfully kind Margaret Scheper who came by with an air-conditioning unit one afternoon.
“This is for you and Susan,” she said. “It will help you sleep at night.”
“This is the Cuthbert House,” I replied. “When the Cuthberts built in 1820 they didn’t have air-conditioning and I think it will destroy the lines of the house. The architecture. …”
“Scott,” Susan interrupted. “They aren’t going to take the house off the historic register if we put this thing in the window…I think we should take it and see if it helps.”
(This was early in our marriage; and we were still getting to know and understand each other. Susan would move to New York City — but we would reconcile and I would learn to take Susan’s counsel in matters concerning HVAC and, also, in other matters.}
These days we sit on the deck for no more than an hour each morning. During that temperate hour we drink our coffee, listen to NPR and watch our lawn struggle to survive the drought.
We do have a well — and we have had some redemptive rain — so our heat-stunted lawn may actually survive August and September. But still there is the feeling that we’re passing through purgatory; and everything is in disarray; reminding us of Napoleon after Moscow.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.