[speaker001:] well the weather has been certainly has been hot and it's been humid I don't remember a year in a long time that the humidity has stayed up this high for uh this late into uh well it's not really late into the summer but the the humidity has hung around all of June
[speaker002:] yeah are you native to this area
[speaker001:] no I grew up in Michigan so uh but I've been I've been in Texas for fifteen years
[speaker002:] oh okay uh-huh
[speaker001:] so uh but you know I know the summers get hot but it certainly uh this humidity has just really hung on there
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah yeah it seemed like well you know last year was so strange having all those heavy heavy rains in April and this year we really didn't have heavy rains until May kind of like pushed the season back a little farther and now it's kind of lingering with kind of still a bit of humidity and it just tried to rain I mean I was coming in from my car just a few minutes ago and it was trying to rain which
[speaker001:] yes
[speaker002:] seems strange to have it raining in July normally we don't have too much uh humidity or or uh rainy time when it's past June
[speaker001:] oh that's right that's right I can remember it not it's really August that it happens you get those great big cracks in the ground where it's been so dry and it just gets so dry and the earth opens up
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] I can remember the first year I moved here and it didn't rain I moved here like in late August and it didn't rain from August until December and
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] from August until December and I went home and told it just doesn't rain in Texas I mean it was great after growing up in Michigan and not and all you know every day was cloudy almost every day was cloudy and I you you sort of forget how much it did rain and coming here and then it didn't rain it was just wonderful
[speaker002:] well yeah see I I lived in uh Ohio mainly I lived in uh Pontiac just a little while before I came down here and
[speaker001:] oh yeah
[speaker002:] you know so many times when you were trying to schedule outdoor activities you just never knew if it was going to be a go or not because of the weather it might rain on your little parade
[speaker001:] that's right that's right
[speaker002:] you know and here it was like pretty much you could schedule some activity outside anytime and you really didn't have too much of a chance of it getting rained out
[speaker001:] yeah uh
[speaker002:] you could pretty much do whatever you wanted to do
[speaker001:] that's right oh
[speaker002:] what part of Michigan were you living in
[speaker001:] oh I grew up in Dearborn
[speaker002:] okay yeah yeah
[speaker001:] which is a suburb of of Detroit you probably know where that is because I know where Pontiac is so uh anyway yeah anyway yeah oh a teaching job
[speaker002:] what brought you down here so you teach in Plano schools
[speaker001:] yeah I did I did for a while uh-huh so I'm home with home with two children so uh so new career
[speaker002:] oh okay okay
[speaker001:] new career but uh anyway so that kind of uh well I had been down here to visit so I finished school and said hey let's you know find a place that has a nice job and uh that's how it worked out
[speaker002:] well yeah I think a lot of people were uh leaving Michigan all about the time I came here in the early eighties and it seemed like it was almost a mass exodus you know the the little joke about will the last person leaving Michigan just turn out the light
[speaker001:] oh yeah  oh well it's a nice place you know I mean it's it's a nice that's a nice place though
[speaker002:] well you know I I said I lived in uh the Pontiac I didn't live in the city of Pontiac I lived to the west of it uh I forget the the county but you know where all the lakes are around there
[speaker001:] okay sort of
[speaker002:] I lived in an apartment complex on one of the lakes it was real close to where I worked it was only like four miles to work and it was wonderful being on the lake like that you know in the summer you feel like you're you know on a vacation all the time because you're right on a lake and everybody's you know out enjoying the water and such and uh in the winter time the lakes froze over you could still kind of go sledding and such out there but I thought it was just really neat to be out there on all those lakes there's lots of really small ones out there
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you know like maybe a mile two long that's enough to uh do some boating and it was lots of fun
[speaker001:] yeah that's right that's right Lake I think Lake Whitmore is the only one I have real memories of
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] which is well I think it's I think it's toward Ann Arbor so it's probably out in that direction but that's the only one I probably could name after all these years so
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah yeah
[speaker001:] but uh
[speaker002:] but it was yeah just lots of little lakes and of course it was you know a little more expensive to live on the lake but I just thought that was grand and I think a lot of people didn't really know that there were all those lakes out there unless you were from that area and kind of spotted them but there was quite a few lakes all around there it seemed like it was almost like you were living on an island there was so much water around where I was I said I wasn't close to downtown Pontiac I was way out to the west maybe four or five miles from from the city limits and it was really nice out there
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] we had uh Pine Knob you know to go skiing and stuff so there were things around there really was pretty nice
[speaker001:] oh right right sure sure and don't isn't that where they have a summer music festival there too
[speaker002:] right right in the summertime they have musicals there and in the winter time they make snow and have a ski slope
[speaker001:] uh that's right that's right I know we used to we we didn't do a lot of it but we did
[speaker002:] yeah yeah
[speaker001:] we did so those are always fun and Alpine was it Alpine was another ski slope that we went to so uh
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker001:] it was nice I always tell people that in the winter we use we used to uh my dad would kind of bank up the snow in the backyard and turn the hose on you know make a pond in the backyard for us
[speaker002:] oh yeah yeah
[speaker001:] so but uh you know we probably did some ice skating on it but then it chipped chipped and you know it would melt or whatever and get pretty uneven so
[speaker002:] yeah yeah we used to have a Christmas time uh some of our relatives would come up from Alabama and I think most times we would have snow around Christmas and the kids when they were young would just go nuts
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you know because they were from Alabama where it never snowed and they just had a grand time watching the snow and getting out there and playing in it you know eternally
[speaker001:] oh oh oh right right if only it would make nice snow here in Texas we'd be okay at Christmas time
[speaker002:] my first winter here I I came down in uh early eighty two and there was just a freak snowfall early one morning in December before couple days before Christmas it lasted only a few hours like by noon it was gone
[speaker001:] yeah yeah
[speaker002:] and I remember getting up and somebody telling me hey better wait to go to work because the roads are all you know snow and I was laughing going yeah right that's a good practical joke ha ha they said no really there's snow and there was but a very short time and the weather got warm so quick it just melted it all away
[speaker001:] yeah yeah yeah I kno w
[speaker002:] course when we get an ice storm that's not too much fun
[speaker001:] no that's not fun either so uh I I just as soon have all the slushy snow on the streets than have the ice on the streets so but uh well we have our house is kind of on a little hill so uh we get the sled out and uh the kids go down the hill the hill on the sleds when it's icy I mean they just go down the ice and if it's cold we say okay out you go I think we must be the only people on the block that make use of that cold weather and get out there
[speaker002:] yeah  oh yeah I think it's fun even the couple of ice storms I've gotten out there in my ski pants or something and still just been out and enjoying it a little bit I mean sometimes the ice is pretty bad but if you get on the the uh grassy kind of part you get a little bit of traction you know not slip and fall I mean first