Arizona, Rain and Those Hazy-Crazy Memories of Summer

Flash flood at Old Tucson, circa 1987. Photo by KFB.

Here’s my response to another weekend assignment from John M Scalzi in By The Way....  He wants "the perfect summer song."  I'll give you two of them that work for me personally--and I can pretty much guarantee they won't be anyone else's picks.

Probably nobody under the age of 40 even remembers Nat "King" Cole's Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer.  I'm 47, and I remember it fondly.  I distinctly recall hearing it on WSYR radio in my mom's Rambler as we drove past the pharmacy near the bottom of High Bridge Road in Dewitt, NY, on our way to a vacation on Lake Ontario.  WSYR was the Syracuse station for my parents' generation, and they controlled the radio on family vacations.  I didn't really start listening to the Top 40 rock stations (WNDR and WOLF) until the early 1970s.

My other specific memory of Nat "King" Cole's 1963 summer hit is from years later.  I was at the home of  some friend of my mom's, hanging out with other kids I didn't know well.  The parents were off in another room or out to dinner or something.  I came across a 45 of Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer, and played it at least once.  My memory is that I did so while reading the original hardback edition of The Beatles' Illustrated Lyrics, a book that belonged to my mom's friend (Anita? Jean? Lillian? I don't remember which). 

It wasn't the first time I'd looked at that book while at that particular house.  The first time I saw it, I had Peggy Lee's Siamese Cat Song stuck in my head because of the lady's two (you guessed it) Siamese cats.  I'm sure I learned the song from an episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. 

Anyway, the second or third time I spent an hour or more looking over The Beatles' Illustrated Lyrics, the woman loaned it to me to take home.  I still have it, that very copy, along with a copy of The Little Prince that was also originally loaned to me by a friend of my mom's.  Sorry about that.  I would have returned them 35 years ago given the opportunity.  I suspect that at some point, the books' original owners decided to let me keep them.

Now that I've confessed to my illicit possession of that Beatles book, I should name one of their songs as an alternate summer song in case only rock and roll counts.  All right: Rain.  No, it doesn't mention summer, but it's perfectly appropriate for summer in Tucson, where there are no beaches and no sane person dives with the top down in July or August.  A hot wind when it's 100 degrees or higher is not refreshing. Rain, though, can be very refreshing in such circumstances.

"Wait a minute," you may be saying. "Tucson?  Rain?  Isn't Tucson in the desert, a place reputed to have 360 sunny days a year?"

That's right.  But twice a year, it starts to rain for a month or two, not every day, but enough to get almost all of our 11 inches a year into two brief periods.  Each season is called a monsoon, after similar weather patterns on the other side of the world.  One is called the "male" monsoon, and the other the "female" one--at least, they used to be. The winter rainy season is no big deal, just a bit of rain now and then, with a little hail or snow mixed in once every couple of years.  It's in summer that we get the real monsoon.  It starts in June or July, and it's a big show: dramatic thunderstorms, lightning, pouring rain, and flooded roads.  Tucson Boulevard turns into a river.  People drive into washes (small river beds, also called arroyos, that are dry except during major storms) and get stuck or float away.  When someone unwisely drives into a dip in the road and has to be rescued, the city bills them for the cost.  It's called the "Stupid Motorist Law."

The coolest thing about the summer monsoon is that it's like the weather in the song Camelot. It usually only rains between four and six PM, or at night.  Late in the afternoon, I hear the rain pounding on the roof, and rush to the window to admire the downpour.  By the time my work day finishes, it's all over, and I can drive home. The temperature has just dropped at least 20 degrees.

Anyway, here it is late June, and everyone in Tucson is waiting for the monsoon to start.  So far we've only had a few drops when we weren't looking, just enough to make the cars filthy. When the rain comes, we'll run and hide our heads, only to watch the show from the safety of our homes and offices.

What's that, John?  You also want a song for the last day of summer?  Okay, with cooler weather only a month away--sometime in October--it will finally be time to listen to the Beach Boys, Fun Fun Fun.

Have a nice summer. 

Karen

fun facts about the Tucson monsoon - NWS