On an afternoon as clear and fresh as chilled Riesling, I sat by the window in this room where I work, and held a cat for warmth.</p><p> That was a week ago, just past the middle of July &mdash; the time of year we Midlanders know as our season for suffering. From somewhere, a spell of coolness had blown in, bringing relief after a brutal run of suffocating days.</p><p> On one of those days, with the thermometer at 90-something and humidity off the charts, I volunteered to drive my wife on what was advertised as a brief shopping excursion.</p><p> We all must do our part to help right the economy.</p><p> &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll only be a little while,&rdquo; she said, and disappeared into the maw of what I believe would be described as a &ldquo;big box&rdquo; store.</p><p> I chose to wait in the car. Bad mistake!</p><p> In only minutes I passed from discomfort to near heat stroke. I switched on the radio for distraction. On the news it was reported the temperature in Phoenix was 114. The next day&rsquo;s forecast was for 116.</p><p> People there were dying. If anyone ever tries to sell me on the glories of Phoenix, I will ask where they dispose of the corpses.</p><p> Staggering from the car, I went into the store that had swallowed my wife. And I scarcely can describe the enormity of the place.</p><p> From front to back, the aisles of clothing &mdash; maybe 18 or 20 of them &mdash; ran away to the end of seeing. In that trackless jungle, women circulated with bundles of prospective purchases heaped in their arms.</p><p> At the checkout registers, the lines did not seem to move.</p><p> Just inside the store&rsquo;s entrance was a row of chairs, backs against the window and facing into the maelstrom. All the chairs were occupied by men &mdash; men wearing expressions of despair and betrayal. And I joined them.</p><p> Time passed. Much time. The wife of one of the men appeared with her armload of plunder, and they exited. The others of us were bitter with envy.</p><p> I was reminded of the vacations our family used to take to a lake in far northern Minnesota, not far from the Canadian border. The time there was restful and sweet, with fishing and picking wild berries the only real activities.</p><p> Each time though, as we prepared for the drive home, my wife would say, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re stopping at the Bemidji Woolen Mills, aren&rsquo;t we?&rdquo;</p><p> That was not to be mistaken for a question.</p><p> Now Bemidji, population just under 13,600, isn&rsquo;t a metropolis. But neither is it a one- or two-street town. From each year to the next, I never could remember the way to the store.</p><p> So I would simply circulate up and down one street, then another, until I came upon a group of men out front of a large building, leaning against the wall for support, wearing the same expression of hopelessness as the ones sitting in those chairs in the big box store.</p><p> I knew beyond any question that I&rsquo;d found the place, and that their wives and female dependents were inside, as mine soon would be.</p><p> This started to be a column about the recent brief gift of unseasonably cool weather. I seem to have strayed.</p><p> In any case, summer is sure to return with a vengeance, maybe even before month&rsquo;s end. And brutal August will soon follow. The one mercy is that we do not live in Phoenix.