City September
Unpredictable. That’s the only way to put it. In my short time as a student at Tulane University in New Orleans, I missed the Little Rock weather. New Orleans was tropical, balmy, and seemed never really to change.
It rained there every afternoon at 3. Of course, I had a 3 p.m. class, so the quick monsoon would soak my shoes, permeate my rain jacket, then the sun would come out and humidity thick as gravy returned, all conspiring to make me miserable.
I sweated through Halloween there, was too hot to eat the cafeteria version of a Thanksgiving meal, and watched televised snow-blown football games while palm trees blew in front of me. I Christmas shopped on the Riverwalk wearing shorts, fanning myself as the Mississippi River lapped its shore.
I missed Little Rock with its four seasons, brief as spring and fall may be some years. I missed being cold when you were supposed to be cold and hot when you were supposed to be hot.
Despite all that, I never, not once, missed the month of September in Little Rock.
September in Little Rock is fickle, a harsh and unforgiving tease. It’s supposed to launch us into autumn.
I mean, from my front porch, I’ve heard bass drums pounding at War Memorial Stadium’s high school football games. I’ve enjoyed morning runs with the temperatures just barely in the 60s. My neighborhood Kroger is selling pumpkins and Halloween decorations.
It’s supposed to be fall now, right? Then, September slapped us hard. Last week, temperatures soared into the 90s, heat indices rose above 100 degrees, humidity settled into our lungs.
How? How do we go from pleasant low 80s at the warmest part of the day to 99 freakin’ degrees at lunchtime?
Because it’s September in Little Rock.
The days are shorter. Stunning constellations shine in tribute to our city below. My lawn-mowing duties are lessening. But asphalt-melting heat is back.
Until just a few years ago, my high school building had no air conditioning. Before technology was so fragile and before school security was an imperative, we’d prop every door and every window and have a symphony of fans blowing when the heat became overpowering.
That’s where I learned to hate September. It was in that month that we’d move to the “cool weather uniform” of long pants and button-down shirts with ties. A heat wave invariably hit the moment I finished my first half-Windsor knot.
The weather reports say cooler temperatures return soon. They say September will move from electric chair to arm chair before you know it. We’ve ridden the wave, and pleasant air returns.
September in Little Rock—with its aroma of fall festivals, pounding of high school bands, the hint of gold in the top leaves of tall oaks—reminds me that change is good.
Maybe that’s it. It wasn’t the weather in New Orleans that bothered me, it was its predictability.
Ah, September in Little Rock isn’t so bad after all.