I stepped outside in the downtown hotbox to walk the trash to the dumpster. Heat radiated from the street and from the brick and pounded me in the face. Hard to believe we lived out in this without A/C for almost eighteen years. The doorknob is so hot I have to twist it fast to get back inside.

We used to call the summer the “three-month mind-siege,” and we knew and counted down the number of days until the first fall rains and when the days would shorten and the nights would cool. I’ve talked about it here before, but there’s something else to the equation. Having the three months of heat is the payment we make for the nine months of beautiful Central Texas weather and all the other great things about living here.

The other day I heard a local say, “If I wanted to live in Arizona, I’d have moved to Arizona.” Reminded me of these lyrics from Robert Earl Keen’s song Furnace Fan:

I understand why lizards live in sunny Arizona
Why people do and call it home I’ll never understand

It’s hotter than a furnace fan out in Arizona
110 ain’t nothing when you live out there you see
Stars come out you scream and shout “Hey it’s good to know you”
If you’re going there and you don’t mind say hello for me

Sometimes the long-time locals, especially those who haven’t traveled as extensively as I have, don’t understand how good they have it. They don’t realize that every place has its mind-siege.

I’ve seen Southwestern Australia where it’s cold in the summer and everything alive will sting, bite, or kill you. Where it’s hot too, sometimes, and the flies would cover you and fill our bus and you couldn’t get away from them. So many flies. The Aussies called waving flies from your face the “Australian salute,” and the old men wore wine corks hanging from strings from their hats in front of their faces, so they only had to move their heads to shoo the flies.

I’ve seen Central America where it rained every day and it could be 72 degrees and so cold you couldn’t stand it, or 72 degrees and so hot and humid you couldn’t breathe. And it would rain again and the mud and water were up to your ankles in a few minutes flat. And potholes everywhere, even on brand new paved road, and trees would grow from dead fence posts it was so wet, and the trees come up through the new roads overnight. You can’t stop the jungle no matter what the extremists tell you.

I’ve seen Iowa in winter, no real winter coat, and it was -15 and we were trying to scrape the ice off of everything, but your skin would freeze up in no time if it wasn’t covered. It was so cold you have to plug in your car, but that doesn’t mean it’ll start anyway.

I’ve seen Duluth in its very few months of near-perfect weather, the opposite of Brownwood. Three months of beautiful weather and then nine months of being Canada. You could sit out on the porch on the good days and say “Why doesn’t everyone live here?” And then the inchworms would come down from the hills by the billions, heading for Superior, and they cover everything in an hour, even whole houses and the hubcaps on the cars.

I’ve seen New York City in fall, the leaves changing in their multi-colored hues, when it’s beautiful in the morning with a cup of coffee, riding a horse carriage in Central Park and later getting a slice at a bodega. Ice skaters in Rockefeller Plaza. And what they don’t tell you… the garbage starts coming down from the high-rises early in the morning. Stacked on the streets by the curb. And it comes down all day as you walk the city. And by evening you’re walking through a maze – towering walls of garbage bags higher than your head – as the city fills with the day’s garbage.

I’ve seen San Diego, the Old Town, where the temperatures are perfect every day and the margaritas are perfect and it’s never cold or hot… and they tell you where you better not take a wrong turn into the wrong areas because bad things will happen to you. And they will. Artificial life.

And I’ve seen so much more.

There is something wrong with every place. Bears, ticks, corruption, earthquakes, tsunamis, crime, gangs, taxes, bad politics. Oklahoma.

We have to put up with a few months of heat while we sit in the air-conditioning. I’ll take it here because I’ve been just about everywhere.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.