Learning to Like Summer

 What is most people's favorite time of summer? It might be a few weeks from now, when so many vegetables and fruits ripen.

But I know what finishes second: taking navy showers in mid-summer. In winter I take a navy shower in the late afternoon when it is warmest inside the trailer. But you always feel a little bit chilly. The navy shower is just OK.

But in mid-summer a navy shower is sheer pleasure. When you are wet and the spray is turned off, you feel cool and refreshed, but not chilly. It is quite a reward for making it through another hot day.

I said this was going to be the summer when I learned to like summer. And the navy shower can be a big part of that effort.

Working things like this out is one reason I like living on a more basic level, such as camping. In a normal, middle-class, stick-and-brick house, you would just crank up the air conditioner, and pay a couple hundred dollars per month to cool 15,000 cubic feet of air.