Dry Heat My Eye

This is not going to matter to most of you, so you can just stop reading. Sorry. This is one of those things I just want to have on the record, so I am putting it on my blog. So, good-bye. Thanks for stopping by.

Today is the 16th anniversary of the hottest day in the recorded history of Phoenix. On 26 June 1990 the temperature hit 122 degrees. It was so hot that the airplanes at Sky Harbor International Airport had to stop flying because their engine settings did not include information on how to fly at a temperature that high.

Yes, it was hot.

I guess it wasn't so bad. I mean, anything over 110 really is like putting your head inside an oven, so a few more degrees is not going to much matter. I think the worst thing about it was just the day before we set a record with 120 degrees. How redundant is that?

Anyway, I was living here in Phoenix on that day. Although born in Phoenix I escaped moved to San Francisco in 1979 and had returned to Phoenix only a couple years earlier. (Long story as to why I came back.) I was driving around that day in my old Buick that had no air conditioning doing something that I cannot even remember now as having been important enough to be in that heat. Ick!

Suffice it to say, it was horrid. Three people died that day from the heat.

Illustration is by Matt Hinrichs.