Ice and Shade Are What's Needed

Weather gurus use a long list of sophisticated equipment, including high-powered computers that model all of the possibilities as fronts push this way and that, pockets of high or low pressure skip hither and yon, and jet streams meander through the atmosphere. But still the imprecise science of weather prognostication comes down to the interpretation of signs and wonders by human forecasters.
And even with all of the data and brainpower available to them, they still get it wrong on a regular basis.
That’s why I thought comments made in 1846 by Francois Arago, “Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences,” still had the ring of truth to them. He got really mad after somebody accused him of trying to give weather forecasts.
“Never has a word escaped my lips,” he told the press, “never has a line published with my consent, authorized any one to imagine it to be my opinion that it is possible, in the present state of our knowledge, to announce with any degree of certainty, what weather it will be a year, a month, a week, I shall even add, a single day, in advance. ... Whatever may be the progress of science, never will observers who are trust‑worthy and careful of their reputations venture to forecast the state of the weather.”
Mark Twain mocked the forecasters in an after dinner speech by giving his own prediction for the coming weather: “Probable nor’-east to sou’-west winds, varying to the southard and westard and eastard and points in between; high and low barometer, sweeping round from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes with thunder and lightning.”
Of course, neither Arago or Twain lived in south Louisiana in July and August, when – except for an occasional hurricane – a summer weather pattern gets so well established that a fourth-grader can predict it: Hot night, hotter day, 20 percent chance of a shower as the sun heats up moisture coming in from the Gulf.
When that pattern sets in, there’s nothing to do but follow the advice offered in The Planters’ Banner during the summer of 1852: Make use of ice and shade.
“It has been remarked a thousand times,” the newspaper’s editor wrote, “that were it not for the excessive heat of Louisiana in the summer months … she would be by far the most delightful State in the Union to reside in. This is certainly true; and when the remark is made, no one ever thinks that the disadvantage of climate could ever be remedied. But such is not the case: by a plentiful use of ice the climate of Louisiana may be moved many miles north.”
The editor explains that our “animal heat … is generated in the stomach,” and “if by a plentiful use of ice in the many delightful and elegant ways that it can be employed, the stomach is reduced to a certain temperature, the animal heat of the whole body will be reduced with it, and a man can sit in the shade, with the thermometer at 98°, and feel just as comfortable as if it were really at 50°!”
Ice makes us not only more comfortable, but also healthier, “for the cause of three-fourths of the summer maladies of this climate proceed from the fact, that the stomach, when heated above a certain point, whether by intemperance, violent exercise, inflammation or heated atmosphere, will not digest its contents.”
There you have it: Find a shady spot, drink an iced beverage (prepared in a delightful but temperate way), and by all means avoid violent exercise.

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.