Boy, it's hot today

The heat was always miserable, the air so thick with moisture you could feel yourself laboring to take in a breath. You had as little clothing on as possible – you had to, because what clothing you wore would be soaked through on account of your sweat and the humidity. It wasn’t like faraway Arabian deserts, where the driest air makes it possible, even necessary, to wear long, loose garments to protect from the sun’s inferno. No, this was the Midwest in a city by a river, a sticky, winding waterway where riverboats sat like you were living a Mark Twain novel, the oppressive swelter slowing you to a crawl.

But you loved it. You loved it as you stepped out of your air conditioned car onto the hot gravel parking lot and stretched your legs after your journey. You loved it as you walked across the bridge to eat lunch on Covington Landing, sucking in anything that resembled a breeze as you stood high above the water, swaying and shaking with the bridge and the rumbling of passing cars and trucks. You loved it as you stared up at the massive circular structure in front of you, marveling at its clever curves and concrete ramps, as you stepped on the soft black rubbery stuff on the sidewalk, as you listened to vendors trying to sell their wares, scalpers trying to make a few bucks, kids unable to contain their excitement.

I was born less than three months after the Big Red Machine had won its last World Series, but the spirit of that time haunted every corner of Riverfront Stadium until it imploded into the annals of history books. You could feel baseball there, feel the tradition, the memories of a glorious time in Cincinnati as you sat roasting with the new guys, the Oesters and O'Neills and Larkins who played on an oppressive fake-grass-on-concrete field, where 130 degree temperatures made your 90 degrees feel cool.

Every now and then a hot, humid day like today can take me back to that place no matter what part of the world I am in, whether I am sipping Riesling in the Rhine Valley, walking along the Nile River, or gazing up at the temple of democracy near the banks of the Anacostia here in our nation’s capital. Sometimes, when I watch the condensation dripping down a cold beer, I think of an icy Coke in a plastic Reds souvenir cup wetting my hands in the red seats, where birds flew below you and the players looked like ants. I can watch the sausages race on television, find the baseball under the crab at Camden Yards, or cheer on Thomas Jefferson at RFK, but none of them compare to the primitive scoreboard technology of the Mr. Red race, where Number 2 always won in my mind. It was summertime in Cincinnati, and it was baseball.

Man, is it hot today. And I love it.