LETTERS FROM HOME: DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HEAT, HUMIDITY AND RECREATIONAL EXPLOSIVES

July 2, 1998

Dear Julie,

At the hot tubs and sauna oasis down on 12th street in Arcata, Bavarian music spills over the international newspapers and the sound of frothing milk warms the cool air. I take my towel from the proprietor, a musically confused leprechaun of a man who plays the bagpipes. After sauntering along the wooden walkway and over the fragrant pond to the saunas, I undress, pour water over the heated rocks and pleasurably watch the steam rise. After 15 minutes perspiration is erupting from every pore on my body, dripping into my eyes. I am swimming in my own salt lake.

Then I awake and realize it's only summer in Cape Girardeau, and DC has turned off the air conditioning in the middle of the night again.

The double barrels of heat and humidity have blasted us earlier than usual this summer. Eventually they seep into your psyche, make saints glower.

Air conditioning helps but also accentuates the baked state of affairs that awaits outdoors. One minute at work or in a movie you're mildly hypothermic, the next you're face to face with the Devil's own breath.

Pyromania is in the air.

DC will be haunting the discount fireworks stands soon. I know recreational explosives were outlawed for general consumption long ago in California but here the "zvvvvvt" and lingering pop of a bottle rocket in the sky signals that July 4 is near.

DC made a treaty with a kid across the street. He doesn't shoot bottle rockets into our yard, terrorizing Hank and Lucy, she doesn't call the police.

My wife and her father love fireworks but nobody in the family trusts them to light the fuses. They're just a bit too enthusiastic for peace time.

At the cabin on Castor River, the job usually falls to me to announce the name of each piece of pyrotechnics before igniting it. Oohs, aahs ensue.

Then DC's father leads us on a pilgrimage over the hill above the cabin. There we shoot bottle rockets over a pond until everybody convinces him it's time to go to sleep.

He keeps the cabin stocked with bottle rockets year-round in case the grandchildren want to let a few fly when they visit.

In "Body Heat," William Hurt and Kathleen Turner spend half the movie bathed in each other's perspiration. The cop investigating whether they killed her husband says the weather -- the kind we're having -- makes people think about doing things they shouldn't.

A few days ago, DC revealed that her mother taught all three of her young daughters the secret of climbing up the inside of a doorway. DC told me this with a look that dared me to challenge her.

Explanation: It's hot.

And I just read the obituary of a man whose family is going to bury him with a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. It's very hot.

Last night, in the spirit of pyromania, DC suggested that we each write down three good things and two bad things about our marriage. The anticipated explosions did not occur. The bad was not irretrievable and the good was worth falling in love all over again.

But if DC turns off the air conditioner again tonight, who knows?

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.