Everyday Life

A native Nebraskan, I’ve always derided the idea of “heat index” or “wind chill.” You ask the temperature or hear it on the radio. “It’s 88 degrees outside,” the announcer says. “But humidity’s high so it feels like it’s 100 degrees.” Come winter they’ll be announcing that the wind chill means it “feels like 10 below”.

Even as a child, I dismissed the idea. Heat index and wind chill are for weenies–people who want to whine about how hot or cold it is when it really isn’t that bad.

I grew up in Nebraska. We never have heat without humidity. 95 degrees with humidity still feels like 95 degrees to me. It’s all I’ve ever known (excepting my brief stay in Mexico and forays into the mountains where the dry air makes 95 feel positively comfortable.)

I grew up in Nebraska. We never have winter without wind. 5 degrees with wind is still 5 degrees.

Today, Joanna and I took a bike ride. We started out on the MoPac East, intending to ride to Elmwood and back, somewhere around 36 miles.

As we traveled to the trailhead, Joanna commented on the weather. They’re predicting scattered thunderstorms. It’s pretty humid. We’re under a heat advisory.

“Heat advisory!” I scoffed. “They put those things out entirely too often.” After all, there’s barely been a day that hasn’t had a heat advisory for the past two weeks. “We’ll do fine.”

We enjoyed a nice ride, commenting to each other how much easier the return trip would be–so long as the wind didn’t change.

Ride, ride. Take a break. Sip water from my camel-back.

Talk a bit. Ride some more. Note the trees and streams and velvety soybean fields.

We passed through Walton, arrived at Eagle. We’re pushing on to Elmwood. Tired, slowing, starting to think about lunch.

Two more miles, one more mile. We’re here at last. Halfway. Only the return journey to go.

Let’s find a park, a bench, somewhere to eat our lunches.

We sit at a bench beside the community center, watching old men come and go. I pick at my sandwich, eat a pear. My appetite’s been poor for months now–and today is not a good day for eating.

Turn around, fly down the hill from Elmwood back to the trail. We’re on the road again.

The wind is with us, but we’re fatiguing. The sun has risen to the top of the sky and we’re starting to feel hot. We’re counting off the miles again–except that this time we have 18 more miles to go.

Seventeeen…

Sixteen…

My camel-back is almost dry, my clothes completely soaked. We’re gonna have to stop in Eagle, I say. I need to get something to drink.

We discuss heat exhaustion, heat stroke. Best to know the signs and how to respond just in case.

My odometer slowly counts up the miles. Twenty two…Twenty three…Twenty Four.

I remark to Joanna that I can’t believe people who run marathons. Two more miles, I say, and we’ll have ridden the distance of a marathon. How do people do that?

I’m really looking forward to stopping at Eagle, getting something to drink. I’m soaked through. My clothes are starting to chafe horribly, and I’m feeling a bit…off.

My odometer announces that we’ve traveled 26 miles. A marathon.

And Eagle lies over the next little rise.

We park our bikes at a gas station and begin to fantasize about the air conditioning that will greet us when we open the door.

Oh, it felt nice.

Joanna points out the mud on my face–a mixture of road dust and sweat. I head to the bathroom to clean it off. I don’t need to use the restroom. Never mind that I’ve consumed two liters of water in the past couple of hours. My bladder is empty. I’ve sweated it all out.

I walk back out of the bathroom and Joanna takes a good look at me. “I think maybe we should call and see if someone could pick us up.”

I don’t like to admit it, but I can’t deny. “Yeah, I think maybe we should.”

We buy some Gatorade and sit at a booth while I call back to Lincoln to ask for a ride.

I was clearly dehydrated–and probably running out of both glucose and electrolytes. It was clear that for my sake we needed to call it a day.

Twenty-six miles.

Thirty-six would have sounded so much better.

How my brothers will tease.

But twenty six isn’t shabby, I told myself. And we rode most of it against the wind, in a heat advisory.

We passed a marquee as we entered Lincoln: 88 degrees. Disappointing.

“Bah,” I said, “what with the heat index and all, it felt an awful lot hotter.”

After church last Sunday, I was chatting with a man who worked at the Glenwood Resource Center and had helped out with the Special Olympics in years past. He told me that it was a great opportunity, and that I should really plan on seeing an event or two.

“I’ll have to do that,” I answered. I hadn’t even considered attending an event before–I’d been more concerned with staying out of prime traffic areas when visitors might be swarming. Campus tends to be a zoo when we host events like this. But attending an event…that sounded like a nice diversion.

I mused almost to myself at dinner whether my former coworker Daniel might be competing in the power lifting competition. When we were working together, he’d gone to Beijing to compete–so I knew he took part in the Special Olympics.

I wasn’t expecting a response from anyone, but Dad answered me anyway. Yes, Daniel would be competing.

I asked if Dad had a schedule of events. He said he didn’t–at least not a specific schedule. I made a mental note, hoping to look it up.

I forgot.

But this morning Dad texted me a web address where they were live streaming the power lifting events.

I sat in my chair in front of my computer with my embroidery in hand and watched the event until my internet connection went wonky.

“I’ll just go out,” I thought. It isn’t that far and I was planning on riding with Joanna today anyway. Maybe she wouldn’t mind making that our destination.

Joanna being amenable, we rode to UNL’s Kimball Hall and sat and talked (about liturgy and church calendars and altar cloths–of all things) until the program was to start. It turned out the award ceremony was later than I thought I’d heard the announcer say (I had a bit of difficulty understanding her thick Southern accent), so Joanna had to leave before the ceremony.

But I was able to sit and cheer for Daniel and others from far and wide as they collected their medals. Daniel won four gold medals and one silver–and set a personal best record on the bench press! Go, Daniel!

Whether it was just excitement over his day’s successes or true pleasure in seeing me, I got a giant hug from Daniel once I managed to break through the crowd to congratulate him afterward.

It was so nice to cheer and to support Daniel, who for a couple of years was my head dish-man and still holds a special place in my heart. My church informant was absolutely right–the Special Olympics are a blast!

Yesterday, Joanna and I took a bike ride. We rode a comfortable 16 miles around town, stopping at the local splash park to get wet–

and at another local park to sit and talk.

On our way home, we ran into my dad, riding his bicycle home from lunch at the park–and into my brother, riding his bicycle to either class or work.

It was a beautiful day to be riding. It was relatively cool, not too humid, and windless.

However, I forgot to wear sunscreen, so I discovered this…

when I returned home.

See the line along my spine? That’s where my braid protected me.

Yeah.

I was 20 years old before I got “the talk”.

When I was going through puberty, my parents were still finishing up going through newborns–and somehow “the talk” escaped them.

They decided to do better for my brothers, so they purchased Barbara and Dennis Rainey’s Passport 2 Purity weekend retreat kit and Dad started preparing for a guys weekend retreat.

They rented a cabin at one of our state parks and purchased massive amounts of meat and “bellywash” (soda). And they headed off for a weekend of manly pursuits (fire building, mountain biking, and copious amounts of meat.)

And, of course, they had “the talk”.

Joshua and Daniel got theirs. John and Timothy got theirs.

Then Mom started talking of preparing for Grace’s weekend retreat and Anna and I got jealous.

It wasn’t fair, we said. We’d never gotten “the talk”. We’d never enjoyed a weekend retreat with our mother, doing girlie things. We’d never listened to the Rainey audio-cassette tapes that my brothers rolled their eyes and shook their heads at.

So at last, when I was 20 years old, my parents decided to backtrack. They’d do the right thing by their eldest daughters. They’d give us “the talk.” Better late than never, right?

We got a hotel room at a hotel with a pool. We ate Macaroni Grill for dinner. We explored craft boutiques during the day and had lunch at The Green Gateau, a fancy little Lincoln restaurant. And when we weren’t doing other things, we listened to the Raineys talk about purity.

Not surprisingly, “the talk” was geared towards a younger audience. The content was good, but nothing we hadn’t managed to discuss already in much less formal conversations. The official “birds and the bees” segment passed so quickly that we had to stop and comment to each other. “Was that it? Was that all they were going to say about the mechanics?” Apparently so.

Yes, “the talk” was a bit belated–and therefore rather comical.

But we came away from our weekend talk having joined the fraternity of Passport 2 Purity graduates, proudly bearing our badge of membership: a musical rendition of Colossians 1:18.

Now all the Menter children can proudly sing:

“He is also head of the body, the church. And He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself may come to have first place in everything…” YE-AH-AH

And sing it we do, whether needling one another with a “private” reminder of the weekends we shared or enjoying a moment of family togetherness around the Fourth of July dinner table.

Ah, fond memories of “the talk”.