Hot Fun in the Summertime

Okay fellaz, it's my favorite time of year. SUMMER! And it's a hot one. I'm a hot weather nut; sue me. I'm not walking around in a haze of depression. My body, mind and spirit are open to the sensual pleasures of the season. The simple pleasures that you don't experience in your air conditioned room. The feel of the wind against your chest. The sound of leaves rustling in the breeze. The sight of people in parks and playgrounds, all sizes and colors, having fun. The feel of my chest heaving and muscles pumping on a run, of sunshine on my shoulders, of my body glistening with sweat. The ethereal spiritual experience of davening minha in Prospect Park, dressed in running clothes, surrounded by natural beauty and children at play. Rav Nachman of Bratslav [Bratislava, Slovakia] used to leave town to daven in natural settings; maybe he knew something that today's uptight gedolim don't.



You can't run in Brooklyn without straying out of your immediate neighborhood, in my case Midwood. Go to the north and east (Crown Heights, Prospect Park, Brownsville, East New York) or south (Coney Island) and you see a commodity that is increasingly rare in Midwood - real men. Men who respect themselves enough to take care of themselves. Men who are strong and vital. Men like the one you see here are not at all unusual outside the frum community. They refresh my soul, and provide a needed antidote to the ever-increasing number of poor excuses of men I see in shul, men with fat bellies that resemble those of pregnant women. Call me a Hellenist, but these people offend my esthetic sensibilities and, along with the building being overcooled, sabotage the experience of tefilla. In my peregrinations outside the frum community I see men after my own heart; they enjoy the season and are not above having a little fun. And guess how many times I was physically attacked or threatened by any of them? Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada. We pass each other and no words need be spoken. A wink, a nod, a gesture communicates the message. We belong to the fraternity of the fit, the brotherhood of real men. We're better than all those weaklings cooped up in their air conditioned rooms letting life pass them by.







And yet I'm surrounded, as I never am in the bleak winter, by people whining and kvetching. Oh, it's soooooo hot. It's boiling. It's gross. And the government chimes in with its "heat advisories." Let the temperature break 90 F and the public health authorities are telling people to stay inside with the air conditioner, don't go out, don't God forbid do anything strenuous. This in a society where more than half of all people, children included, are overweight or obese; I suppose the fat pigs outside the frum community heed these warnings and stay indoors when the weather gets hot. When you're writing heat advisories for the majority in New York, you're writing them for the fat, the weak and the self-pampered. So let me take a stab at writing a heat advisory for strong, fit men - and any females who actually use their bodies instead of merely inhabiting them (I think of them as "honorary men").





1. Stay away from air conditioning as much as possible, except on fast days when you can't drink. In about two weeks you will acclimatize to the heat and actually feel cold in temperatures you consider warm in the winter. Our ancestors made their living chasing down big game on foot in a tropical climate; our genes have not changed much since then. Going in and out of air conditioned surroundings confuses the brain; it doesn't know what temperature regime to adjust to.


2. Hydration, hydration and hydration. You need water, and also salts (sodium and potassium) to replace what you lose in sweat. Carry money on your runs so you can stop in a convenience store and get something to drink. Powerade and now Gatorade are certified by the Orthodox Union.


3. Sweat is not ucky, yucky and gross. It's the precious gift that nature and nature's God gave us to cool our bodies in hot weather. If you're a kohen in the Beit Hamikdash sweat is a bad thing (Ezekiel 44:18); otherwise it's just fine, thank you. Expose as much skin as you dare; the more surface area for sweat to evaporate from, the better. If you should stop sweating during a run, that is cause for concern.


4. Take it easy in high humidity since humid air impedes evaporation of sweat, but don't retire to your room unless you're feeling really bad. Just go slower and shorter.


5. Monitor your body. Pay attention to the color and volume of your urine. Copious amounts of clear or pale yellow urine means you're okay, just keep drinking. Scant and deep yellow urine means you're dehydrated; drink plenty and slow down. Every so often, taste your sweat; just lick a fresh drop from your shoulder or above your lip. If it tastes salty, slow down, have a sports drink and/or eat a salty snack. You might find yourself craving potato chips. If you're on a low salt diet consult your physician, preferably an athletic one. If your sweat does not taste salty- good news! You're acclimatized! A hormone called aldosterone kicked in, and it's keeping the sodium in your blood where it belongs. It's also washing away potassium, so drink some orange juice (o.j. on ice is one of the simple pleasures of the season) and/or eat a banana when you get home. If you're sweating profusely and feeling okay, it's all right to push yourself a little.


6. Use sunscreen but don't obsess over it. When I was a kid suntan lotion had SPF numbers of 4 to 8; anything over 15 was considered overkill. Unless your skin is extremely fair, melanocytes (cells containing dark pigment) will rise to the surface and protect you, but blocking out the sun completely blocks the signal for this response to kick in.


7. If you feel dizzy, lightheaded or cold (!), or you notice that you stopped sweating, do not push yourself. Stop running (or other vigorous activity), seek shade (or air conditioning) and drink lots of fluid. If you don't feel better in a few minutes, seek medical attention. If you do feel better, call it a day and take it easy the next day.


8. When you get home, drink l'chaim on a sports drink and enjoy a cool shower. Let yourself go. Whoop and holler if you feel like it. Revel in the irony. Savor it was you would good wine. You've earned it.


All Jews to the showers!

YEEEEE-HAW!




9. Seek the company of other athletes and avoid that of whiners and kvetches. They just make others as miserable as they are. You deserve to get every last bit of enjoyment out of the summer. It does not last nearly long enough in these parts.

10. Repeat after me: SOFT LIVING NEVER DID ANY MAN OR ANY NATION ANY GOOD!

The Man in the Arena - The Strenuous Life

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Some might recognize this quote as coming from President Roosevelt. No, not FDR. The "other" President Roosevelt, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, 26th President. The quote, which I use to decorate my classroom, is from a speech delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris a year after he left office in 1909. I am not ashamed to say that among my heroes are several Gentiles, and Teddy Roosevelt is one of them. I mentioned him at least once before in this blog. The President's life was an inspiration for my own. In particular, he had been a sickly boy like me, with a keen intellect and wide-ranging interests. His father told him in substance that he had the mind to be whatever he wanted to be, but to make the most of it he would have to make the body. He set up a gym in the back of his house (this was the late 19th century, before health clubs became ubiquitous) and the young Teddy Roosevelt made the body. He transformed himself into a robust young man, and at the age of 39, during the Spanish American War, resigned as Secretary of the Navy to personally lead the Rough Riders in the charge up San Juan Hill.

The Rough Riders

I did not learn until recently that Teddy Roosevelt lived most of his adult life not far from here, on a large estate that he named Sagamore Hill near Oyster Bay in Nassau County, that his estate is now administered by the National Park Service as a National Historic Site and that he is buried not far from his estate. As a child I visited FDR's estate in Hyde Park with my parents, and last week I visited Sagamore Hill by myself. Thanks to Google Maps I was able to ascertain that the trip was possible without a car, and to plan out my route in advance. I took the Long Island Railroad to Oyster Bay and ran about a mile and a half to the gravesite. I could have taken a taxi from the train station, but that would have been cheating, like riding the cable car to the top of Masada. To truly experience the meaning of Sagamore Hill or Masada, you have to challenge yourself physically with a demanding run, bike ride, hike or climb.

Citizens of Oyster Bay are justly proud of Teddy Roosevelt having called their town home. A bust of the President stands beside a war memorial at the town hall.

On the way to the cemetery, you pass Oyster Bay High School, beautifully landscaped like a college campus. Oyster Bay is a wealthy community, and students there cannot help but see that the community takes their education seriously. It is all a matter of values.

The grave is located at the top of a hill, and you reach it by climbing 26 steps, Roosevelt having been the 26th President. The grave itself is enclosed by a fence to prevent the stone from being damaged by repeated touching; you might have noticed that the massive Herodian stones of the kotel are worn smooth up to the height of a tall man by centuries of rubbing and kissing.

I found a couple of people visiting; it is gratifying to know that 90 years after his death people still revere his memory enough to visit the simple grave. After they left I recited a couple of Psalms and wrote a small kvittel (note), which I inserted through the fence into the grass on the other side. Then I left the cemetery and ran another mile and a half, mostly uphill, to Sagamore Hill itself.

The day was hot and muggy. I had prepared for the run by drinking a 20-ounce bottle of Powerade, which I purchased at the beachfront park near the train station. The concession stand was staffed by high school or college aged kids. Could it be that they have responsible parents, who teach them the difference between "I need" and "I want?" What they need, their parents provide. What they merely want, they have to work for. When I reached the entrance to the estate, I was drenched with sweat. I didn't mind. The hard effort was part of my communion with Teddy Roosevelt, who extolled The Strenuous Life and did not seek ease and comfort.

At the visitors' center I was amused by a sign warning that Teddy Roosevelt's house was not air conditioned and the indoor temperature was in the 80s. The house had fans whirring and providing all the cooling I needed; I would have felt cold if it had been air conditioned. Alas, the furnishings dating from the President's lifetime disagree. They are deteriorating due to summer heat and humidity, and next year the house will be air conditioned, with a new technology that will not detract from the architecture. Teddy Roosevelt was an avid hunter and conservationist; the two often go together. The house is decorated throughout with rugs made out of skins of animals he hunted, with the heads still attached in the style of the time (warning to the squeamish). Indoor plumbing was a rarity when the house was built, and you can see the pull-chain toilet.

I visited the museum, housed in another building that was air conditioned. Here are some photos of the exhibits:

The Man in the Arena

Political considerations delayed Teddy
Roosevelt's Medal of Honor for nearly a
century after the action for which he
earned it.

Teddy Roosevelt assumed the Presidency in 1901, following the assassination of President William McKinley. Sixty-two years later, Lyndon B. Johnson would become President in the same way. May we be spared such tragedies in the future.

"We love all the seasons. . . ."

I am decidedly partial to summer.

A sign posted on the grounds by the National Park Service warns visitors of the dangers of heat exhaustion. I made sure to drink plenty of water before the three-mile run back to the railroad station. Then I filled up again with a bottle of Powerade. If you're in shape, acclimatized and pace yourself appropriately, you can stay out of danger. San Juan Hill was not air conditioned.

Sagamore Hill is an inexpensive and enjoyable destination. I got a lot out of the trip, and I recommend it to any athlete who admires Teddy Roosevelt as I do, and who is not afraid to challenge himself and to embrace the strenuous life.

The ghost of summers past

So here we are in my favorite time of year - summer! Long days to enjoy the outdoors. No need to bundle up. Just bask in God's own heat, brought to you free of charge courtesy of the sun. Wherever you go children are playing. On the courts at West 4 Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan you always see teenagers engaged in spirited games of basketball. They haven't learned yet to pamper themselves and stay inside with the air conditioner going full blast. Being in my fifties, I sometimes think back on the summers we enjoyed a generation ago. And the key word was "enjoyed." There was a lot less uptightness then than now. Summer was a time to let our hair down. We would walk around and play ball in short pants, and listen to baseball games on "transistor radios" that operated on boxy nine-volt batteries. Air conditioning was still a luxury that only the wealthy could afford, and few of us were wealthy, so we boys stripped down at home to short pants and sleeveless undershirts. We had fans going (a whole lot cheaper to run than air conditioners, and more comfortable too) and windows wide open to let in the breezes. We'd sprinkle ourselves with baby powder (it absorbs sweat), and above all we drank like fish. The women (and I'm writing about Orthodox people here) actually wore sleeveless dresses; they called them "shifts." We boys went to shul and to Bnei Akiva meetings without jackets or ties. To be sure, there was a minority dressed in heavy black clothing, but they were few in number. We called them khnyocks (can anybody tell me the origin of that Yiddish word?) and they didn't dare tell us what to do. And - imagine this - we went mixed swimming at public beaches! My father a"h would close his store Sundays in July and August and, weather permitting, we packed a picnic lunch and went as a family to Manhattan Beach. Other Orthodox families were also there, without a trace of guilt or self-consciousness. I don't know what the books say, but I do remember the praxis. As we got older, Bnei Akiva boys and girls would go on outings to the beach. We met one another. We talked. Physical attraction led to deeper attraction, and no one ever heard of a "shidduch crisis." The incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and venereal disease in our community was as close to zero as such things ever get, which is a good indication that there was little if any illicit (i.e. premarital) sex going on.

And now, some 40 years later? I'm a fit, strong, lean athlete barukh Hashem, and I tolerate the heat just fine, thank you. I have no need for artificial cooling, other than what fans provide. Fat is an insulator; it traps heat. Fat people shipwrecked in cold water are more likely to survive than similarly situated lean people, because they are less likely to become hypothermic. I go to shul without a jacket, except when I know that the air conditioner will be set too high. And if I get cold, I get up and leave. Bad enough I'm cold in winter; I refuse to be cold in summer (see my previous post). I sprinkle myself with baby powder on hot mornings, I drink like a fish and I run around in short pants and a sleeveless top. Once in a while a khnyock will give me the hairy eyeball; I couldn't care less. And I hear people complaining. Mostly fat people; what do they expect? I bring a thermometer to shul on Shabbat, and sometimes the temperature hovers around 70 degrees. What with electricity so expensive, all the guidebooks are telling us to set the thermostat no lower than 78, but our buildings still run the air conditioner as if electricity was free. On Shavu'ot my shul made a Yizkor appeal for the summer upkeep of the shul, i.e. for running the air conditioner. My Yizkor contribution went elsewhere.
Ah, summer. The heat, the sun, the fun. I only wish that it could last forever.

Write Us in the Book of Heat

This post devolves from my usual global (or at least Jewishly global) concerns to what might be considered a personal peeve. Our communal buildings literally chase me away, by virtue (vice?) of being overcooled in summer and underheated in winter. I had a particularly miserable Tishrei holiday season where proper tefilla was next to impossible. I had to leave in the middle of services on the first day of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Shmini Atzeret. Why? The air conditioning was set so high that the temperature hardly ever rose above 70F. No problem for those generously endowed with insulating fat. Big problem for macho athletic types like myself. The cold literally sucked away my body heat to the point where kavana became impossible. Since we are not commanded to suffer on these holidays, except for Yom Kippur and even then hypothermia is not part of the mandated suffering, I picked myself up and left, just as I picked myself up and left my nephew's huppa several years ago when the hall was unbearably cold in mid-July. When I stepped outside into the natural unconditioned summer-like air, I felt as if I had died and gone to heaven. On Rosh Hashana I blew the last 40 shofar sounds for myself at home. Was it necessary to overcool the shul? Doesn't somebody in authority know how to set a thermostat? All the guidebooks tell us to set air conditioning no lower than 78F in order to conserve energy. Adding insult to injury, the shul cries poverty and wastes our time with appeals for money, even as it runs the air conditioner as if electricity was free.

On my way out, I said out loud, "Avinu malkeinu, kotveinu b'sefer hom." Our father, our king, write us in the book of heat. Why the book of heat? A little basic human physiology. Nature and nature's God (to borrow a quote from Thomas Jefferson) endowed the human species with a highly efficient sweating mechanism to rid ourselves of excess heat. This mechanism served us very well running down our dinner on the African savanna, and continued to serve us in physically demanding occupations until one or two generations ago, when manual labor was virtually abolished in our society. Nature gave us virtually nothing to deal with cold. We are not polar bears with a thick coat of fur. Nor are we whales with a thick layer of insulating blubber. All we have to handle cold is clothing and artificial heating, another example of cultural evolution outpacing biological in our species. Add the fact that my body temperature hovers at 96.5F, two degrees lower than it should be, and yours truly has very little wiggle room at the low end. When others are merely uncomfortable (and unnecessarily so), I am unbearably cold. If I could simply disinvent one of our technological marvels, after the atom bomb it would be the air conditioner. I was fired from a ba'al koreh job because I could not stay in the over-air-conditioned building. In the winter I have to wear more clothing than most people in order to function in a shul that is kept at about 68F to conserve fuel.

What with the climate changing, we can expect warm weather to last farther into autumn, just as happened this year. That is good news for thermophiles like myself. I will actually be able to eat more of my meals in the sukka, whereas in years past I often had to retreat indoors because of the cold - mitzta'er patur. However, it also means I will be spending less time in shul - unless. . . . I am old enough to remember a time when air conditioning was a luxury only the wealthy could afford, and few of us were wealthy. We made do with open windows and fans. Remember fans? Those gizmos that blow air around and enhance evaporation of (shhh, dirty five-letter word) sweat? We took off our jackets (or came to shul without them) and exposed more skin surface so sweat can evaporate. We drank a lot, and I don't mean alcohol. Today I cannot find a shul in Brooklyn that is not air conditioned. Can you? I would really like to enjoy being in shul again.