Heat Stroke Stories

With much of the country experiencing record heat this week, my husband and I sat around on Sunday evening like the old fogies we’ve become and started comparing heat stroke stories. The first time I ever encountered such a thing was at a marching band competition a long, long time ago. I was there with my parents, watching my older brother march in the Drum and Bugle Corps. Those poor high school students wore full uniform—jackets, gloves, hats—in sweltering July heat. As spectators, we watched the perfect rows march by but soon the marchers began to look like ducks at a carnival game. Each row had at least one drop to the field, fainted from the heat. Of course this was about forty years ago, so I doubt they’d allow such a thing these days. At the very least, I doubt they’d require those heavy woolen uniforms on such a day!

My husband and I have both encountered a more personal taste of heat stroke. Both of us were in our early twenties, although we didn’t know each other way back then. My husband was still living in the country, having grown up on a farm in Central Illinois. I was living in the Chicago suburbs at the time. Probably around the same year, while my husband was working his way through college with a summer job as a mason laborer for bricklayers, I took a trip to Hawaii. Can you already see where this story is headed?

I recall I was watching a show of hula dancers who seemed immune to an unusually hot day. My seat was in the direct sun and I was so heated I pulled my hair off of my neck (it used to be long in those days). I didn’t realize the sun beating down on my neck wasn’t a good idea. Soon I started to feel dizzy and nauseous so I sort of hobbled away from my spot in the bleachers. I must have looked a little unstable for so early in the day, because a resort team member met me and offered a comfortable spot in the shade along with some icy water. Things soon went back to normal although I couldn’t really see the rest of the show very well. Ah, such a delicate flower, me.

While I was enduring all of that, so significant as to become indelible in my pool of memories, my husband was working in the Central Illinois July heat. The temperature was no doubt hotter than in Hawaii, and his job was to run buckets of mortar and 40 pound blocks of concrete between the supply area and the bricklayers — up and down the scaffolding. By mid-afternoon he felt dizzy and weak and drank probably a gallon of water only to sweat it out. At one point, with the slim hope of cooling off, he stuck his arms up to his elbows in the water they used to mix the mortar. But he made it through the entire day, a true test of stamina if ever I heard one.

That sort of sums up the history of our lives. My husband’s is full of hard physical labor, while mine is . . . well, not. These days some of my hardest work is done staring out the window. Sometimes I see him outside mowing the lawn or working on some project or another, while I stay inside where it’s cool and comfortable. I’ve longed suspected my husband is smarter than I am . . . and yet . . . here I am, inside on a day like this.

All this to say, find a cool spot, drink plenty of fluids, and keep the sun off your neck!