Beat the heat!

This summer in Indiana has been one of the hottest with temps around 90 to 100+ for weeks, and the ensuing drought has turned many places into disaster areas...especially for the farmers.  I read that we had similar weather conditions in 1935 or 1936, and this produced "dust-bowl" conditions in some states, leading thousands of folks to move to California...like the
"Okies" from Oklahoma.  I remembere faintly as a little guy living in Danville, IL, just how Stroup Street (where we lived) was paved with bricks and got blistering hot on bare feet.  Only the ice wagon or ice cream truck could alleviate the heat....sorry, no air conditioning and few electric fans in those days!  And I recall, too, after moving to Wallace IN in the summer of 1935 how hot, dry and dusty that area was.  One thunderstorm at Grandma ("MaZadie") Grimes's house where we stayed temporarily resulted in a direct hit by lightning, leaving a nice hole in the wall above the telephone in the diningroom and scared the daylights out of everybody, especially those sleeping on the floor (for comfort) in the nearby livingroom!  In 1937, after Dad took over the general store and Post Office (in the family since the 1880's), we moved to a nice 2-story house "downtown," just a short block away from the business and across the street from the Christian Church.  Summer heat and any ensuing drought were relieved by an occasional thunderstorm, usually at just the right time and bringing a cool breeze afterwards.  Since the streets and roads in that area were not paved then, but gravelled, our Dad tried to water down the dusty corner near the store each day. Sometimes the water evaporated about as soon as he applied it from the outside faucet hooked to the town well!  But inside the store Dad's only source of relief was a huge electrice fan which stood 5 or 6 feet off the floor and roared worse than a modern jet engine.  For the young people, of course, ol' Mill Creek beckoned with the promise of a refreshing dip in several swimming holes as it meadered toward the southwest.  Thngs in the store slowed down in the heat of the day, and I was never happier as a teen helper than when he gave the okay to go over the hill for a swim...and then return for a frozen Snickers candy bar and maybe a cold Coke!  Then, every Tuesday night after dark the town sponsored an outdoors movie on the street just south of the store, and folks either "beat the heat" or forgot about it for a time by leaving their work and watching a cowboy or "shoot-em-up-bang" thriller in the cool of the evening.  My Dad couldn't wait to hear the projectionist announce over his P.A. speaker:
"Gather 'round now, folks, we're gonna start the show!"  And he was totally disappointed when he learned beforehand that a cowboy movie would not to be shown.  He hated the big city gangster films!  By the way, dipping ice cream for the
flood of customers during intermission was where I developed my extraordinay biceps as a teen-ager...ha!  At home we coped with heat mostly with hand-held (funeral home-provided) fans, a few electric fans, simply wiping sweat (!)...and, at night by sleeping on the floor in the downstairs parlor room, hoping that a storm would not blow up and scatter locust tree branches, etc., all over to be picked up the day after!  To close, there is something worse than  a physical drought or extreme thirst...it's a spiritual drought.  The Bible clarifies:  "Thus saith the LORD;  Cursed be the man (person) that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.  For he shall be like the heath in the desert...BLESSED is the man (person) that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.  For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when  heat cometh...and shall not be careful in the year of drought..." (Jeremiah 17:5-8).  We recall a speaker saying: "Bless your puckered-up soul!'  Well, we can have relief from a dried-up soul by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior, thereby finding eternal refreshment from the WATER OF LIFE!  Have YOU made that decision yet?  Do so today!