When I lived up north, and was enrolled in school, summer was by far the most desireable season of the year: nice warm sunny weather, and no school!

Now that I'm a working adult in subtropical south Lousiana, summer is something to be endured. It's no longer a three-month-long vacation for one thing, but that's true for pretty much all grownups worldwide. The worst aspect is that, in our part of the world, the blisteringly hot and humid summer is pretty tough to take, not nearly so pleasant as our beautiful (but much-too-short) spring and autumn, or even as our relatively mild but highly erratic winters, with their radically up-and-down temperatures.

Worst of all, hurricane season starts on June 1 (although the bad hurricanes never occur until late summer, August and September).

And, oh yeah, summer weather down here doesn't end with the equinox. Highs in the 80s and 90s, with overnight lows in the 70s and even sometimes 80s*, usually continue well into October. Many people, especially newcomers to the area, manage to survive July and even August by anticipating relief from the heat sometime in the near future. But when the torrid conditions continue on and on into September, it just gets to be too much for some folks. Tempers fray and much unpleasantness ensues, until that first cold front finally blows in sometime around when the shopping malls start flogging Christmas merchandise (i..e., just before Halloween).

*Fahrenheit. I'd do the conversion if I knew how; I'd know how if I really had to...