Friday, July 12, 2002 | 9:13 a.m.
The guy on the radio said it was 113 degrees Wednesday afternoon, and I thought of Bob Welch.
Welch is a columnist for the Register-Guard newspaper in Eugene, Ore. He called the Sun earlier that day to talk about the weather.
Up in Eugene the thermometer promised to push past 90 degrees. Residents were in a dither, so Welch wanted to talk to people in a place where 90 is nothing to gripe about.
Evidently hell's pay phone was busy.
"We've had exactly one day of 92-degree heat, and it could be going on four days," Welch said.
Tragic.
"But Oregonians are weather wimps," he added.
You don't say?
"In wintertime, when it snows, there's a rush on chains and studded tires," he said. "They think we're like the Donner party or something."
Eeesh. Remind me to avoid sushi and hot dogs in Eugene in December.
Of course, I didn't tell him that when snow dusts Lee Canyon's road -- our only "mountain" road -- the Nevada Highway Patrol goes apoplectic.
I didn't reveal that they pretty much threaten to jail anyone failing to use chains or studded snow tires (that I suppose you're supposed to carry in the car and install halfway up the canyon where the "snow" starts) or failing to have four-wheel drive. Nevermind that four-wheel-drive helps the "go" part but does nothing for "stop."
And did I not mention how stupid we drive when it rains? Or how much stupider we drive when it floods? ("Hey, that puddle doesn't look so deep. And I have four-wheel drive.")
Welch says history shows Oregonians have endured some heinous extremes. He had researched weather reports dating back to 1990. (Hey, when we journalistic types talk about the weather we go big or stay home.)
Since 1990, he says, there have been seven instances in which Eugene residents have suffered through four consecutive days of 90-plus temperatures.
"But it's a way of life for you people down there," Welch said.
No, air-conditioning and hermetically sealed casinos where all sense of time is lost are a way of life down here. There probably are slot players who haven't gone outside since April.
"God, it's awful out there," I heard at the grocery store, the gas station and the shoe store Wednesday evening.
We strangers nodded in agreement. It's not the heat, but the conversations we get used to. Our lives revolve around seasons, and this is the one where we stay inside and gripe. Even the creosote bush plays dead until the weather turns.
Welch also said it was dry up in Eugene. Internet weather reports noted the humidity there was 32 percent.
We'd sprout mold. Our humidity was 27 percent Thursday morning, and it felt like a sauna.
I didn't tell Welch about the 40-mph wind storms that kick up so much dust I half expect a caravan of camels to emerge from them.
I didn't tell him about the decorative subdivision ponds that evaporate 14 inches a month or how the cockroaches and scorpions are so desperate for air-conditioning they'll take up residence in the laundry room.
Just used to it, I guess.
'Tis the season.
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