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Yeah, But It’s a Dry Heat
Through most of the ’90s, I worked for a software company in Dallas, doing vertical market insurance administration software. We were the market leader, due in large part to how responsive the company was to customers desires and satisfaction. Part of making this happen was bringing the customers into the process twice a year, for the Product Showcase and the User Forum.
The Product Showcase was always held in Dallas, demonstrating all the new products and features that had been built in the previous year. There was no canned demo software or proof of concept versions; everything we would show was real, working software at least theoretically ready for release, so that was always a stressful event of those of us showing new stuff.
The User Forum was about letting the customers tell us what they wanted to be added in the following year. That event was always held outside of Dallas, in a location chosen to be a fun week for everyone. I think it was in 1996 that someone decided it would be fun to hold that year’s event in Tucson. In July.
Since most people traveled on Monday, the kickoff for the week was the Monday evening cocktail schmooze party. An outdoor party.
Imagine a group of us talking, shortly after arriving at the party.
“God, it’s hot out here.”
“Well, it’s 112°.”
“Yeah, but it’s a…”
“Shut up!”
Every day, it was the same thing; meetings all day, in hotel conference rooms with artic blast air conditioning, followed by an outdoor event. The big night was the trip to the ghost town. We all got on big luxury buses for the trip out there, stepping off into town for a night of dinner, proceeded by lots of outdoor activities. Thankfully, one of them was drinking. Being well aware of the dangers of dehydration, I immediately went to work maintaining my precious bodily fluids. I was halfway through my third beer when I found out that the featured (outdoor) activity was a quick draw competition. I’m skinny; I’ll feel three beers on an empty stomach. I paired off against my boss. Luckily, he was temperance, so I had the advantage.
They had a green light bulb to tell you when to go, like a race track. But unlike the race track, there was no series of lights indicating when it was about to happen. It was off in my peripheral vision, and it was bright as hell outside, so I could barely see it. Basically, I just waited for the other guy to start. We were firing old-timey six-shooters, blanks, of course. Gunslinger rigs, with tie-down holsters. They were single action, meaning we had to fan the hammer back with the left hand. Draw, fan, level off, aim and fire. We went three times, and I was under eight-tenths of a second each time.
And I died all three times.
It was the leveling off and aiming part that was getting me. Nobody else was bothering, and my coach was telling me over and over not to bother. There was a directional mic; whichever guy fired first won. So, even though in a real fight my boss would have left three holes in the floor at his feet, and I would have drilled him (it was about twelve feet; even I can hit you from that distance), I still lost in the first round. He beat me by a couple hundredths of a second. The guy who won killed the floor in .63 seconds.
On Friday afternoon, as everyone else was heading for the airport, I headed north. I’d never seen the Grand Canyon and I’d decided to make a weekend out of it. I drove up the interstate, headed for Flagstaff. I stopped for gas along the way, and then stood and watched a dust devil about 100 yards away across the freeway. It was a good big one, solidly colored and about 100 feet tall. It stood there for the entire time that I was there, even though I lingered watching it 15 minutes or more.
I got into Flagstaff and got a hotel room. It had been over 110° when I left Tucson, so it never occurred to me to turn on the heat. I woke up in the middle of the night freezing.
The next day after sleeping late, I drove the remaining short distance to the park. Coming from the south as I was, one of the first signs that you’d arrived was the heliport, and on the spur of the moment, decided to pull in and take a flight. I was the same weight as the pilot, so instead of sitting in the back looking out of two windows with three other people, I was in the copilot’s seat, with a fantastic view, including the windows in the floor used for landing. I just had to keep from pressing the floor pedals, the problem being that there really isn’t much space anywhere for your feet that isn’t on the floor pedals.
And when they first take off, they’re wobbly, as if you’re hanging from the end of a string like a flying saucer in a ’50s science fiction movie. I was trying to wedge my feet in some way that would hold me in position, without pressing the pedals. I got that worked out as we gained enough altitude so that hanging above the ground didn’t bother me.
I took the hour tour, which covered the entire giant hole in the ground, mostly from down in the hole. Once that was through and we had landed back at the heliport, I drove the rest of the way into the park and walked up to the edge. But let’s face it, once you’ve flown around the whole place, there’s not much left that you’re going to see looking from the rim, so I gave it the full Chevy Chase. Well, it might have been 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds.
I had a flight out of Tucson early the next day, so I went back to there to briefly experience 110°+ heat a little longer, before heading back to Texas, where the temperatures are almost as bad.
Published in Group Writing
When my brother was interviewing for a job in Tucson, one of the selling points his future boss mentioned was, “You can golf ten months per year!”
My brother said, “Yeah, I suppose it gets a bit cool in January and February.”
“Oh no, it’s not that. Those months are great for golf,” his future boss replied. “It’s July and August when the monsoon rains come. That’s when it’s hot and humid!”
I was down there a few times, both in July, I believe. Hot and sticky. The rains come, cool things down for about ten minutes, and then it’s hot and humid until all the water evaporates again, at which point it’s just hotter than a clam at a clambake. Also, there are all of these signs about how low points in roads can become rivers when it rains. They mean it.
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under the February theme of “We Need a Little Summer.” Our schedule is full; however, you can use it to read the other entries or if you have a great story of summer or heat you’d like to share, we can certainly double up on some days.
It’s been a while since I was at Grand Canyon (note, not the Grand Canyon), but I remember at the time they were talking about banning helicopters because of the noise. I don’t know if they actually did that.
I had thought they banned them shortly after I was there, but if so, they restarted it. I read a story about a crash within the last few days.
Man; what’s the point then? If there’s one thing I learned from Louis L’amour it’s that firing too quick without aiming can get you killed.
One year we had two off-site meetings. The January one was in Ojai and it was freezing: Our golf game had to be delayed and start on the back nine because the greens needed to thaw. The June one was in Palm Desert and it was roasting: 18 holes of golf in 113° heat. Good times.
And the Grand Canyon is amazing.
Grand Canyon and storms from Pima Point
Appreciate the temperature references, JM! You melted the snow outside my library window…Perfect!
It’s dark all the time when the weather is nice, too. I never got used to it. You have to completely hate winter.
It’s sort of that way here in South Carolina, except July and August are off limits because of the humidity, not heavy rain. The only people who can golf then are old, thin people. Their higher surface area to body mass ratio means the humidity doesn’t lock the sweat in like it does us fa- . . . people of girth.
I don’t care what they say. When I was growing up I preferred the dry heat of the arid southwest (when we’d go there on family vacations) to the humid heat of muggy northeast Nebraska. But I also have always preferred to live where plants grow.
Phoenix wouldn’t be a big deal if it actually was a dry heat all of the time. From July 4 to September 30 it most definitely is a wet heat. I just don’t hate winter enough.