Summer
This summer has not been bad. I been here for eight summers. At about the third or fourth one in most know whether or not they can take it for a lifetime. For some it takes longer.

My first summer here I did not have air, which I think counts for two summers. Anybody who has been here for a while usually agrees.

I spent that summer in a Honda accord. When I drove down the mountain from Flagstaff for the first time and turned the air on and it died I knew it was going to a tough one.

That summer I discovered a litmus test of the different parts of the valley. I would count for curiosity how many other cars like me had their windows down. Then I would try to guess which ones had the windows down because they preferred it that way. In south Phoenix it is about 3 to 4 out of 10 cars with the windows down. Maybe one out of town by choice. In Scottsdale, sometimes it is 1 out 10 with the windows down, sometimes 1 out of 20. Few had them down by choice.

I am not sure what this teaches us, besides the obvious lessons.