Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 16, 1995                   TAG: 9508160062
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROASTED IN ROANOKE

``To talk of many things:

Of shoes - and ships - and sealing wax -

Of cabbages - and kings -

And why the sea is boiling hot -

And whether pigs have wings.'' - ``The Walrus and the Carpenter,'' by Lewis Carroll.

But much as Southwest Virginians might want to talk of many things, we get stuck in one groove: the boiling heat.

The heat, the humidity, the heat index, even the dew point, are subjects on which we expound at length. In passing, we greet each other not with a dispassionate ``Hi, how are you?'' but with a sincere ``Can you believe this heat?''

We update each other on the latest news: The temperature in Roanoke this week reached 100 degrees, for the first time since 1988. And on the latest forecast: Just as hot or hotter tomorrow. No relief in sight.

We trade horror stories: Snake bites dog. Cat bites dog. Air conditioning on the blink. Repairman says he can maybe come next week. Man bites dog.

We alert each other: Be careful. Don't overdo. Check on elderly neighbors.

We blame it on global warming. President Clinton. Pantyhose. Right-wing talk radio. Aliens from outer space.

We demand a constitutional amendment.

Hey, look on the sunny side - as if there were a choice. Sure enough, as an editorial in the Hartford Courant observed in August 1897: ``Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.'' But the heat wave at least has everybody talking to each other.

And on this subject, there is - for a change in these fractious times - consensus: It's awful, it's oppressive, the worst we can remember, and if we can just make it through this summer we'll never complain again about ice storms and below-zero temperatures and the chill factor.

Right. Of course we'll complain, so much so that when the next harsh winter comes we may even remember fondly this current inferno and wish for its return.

Which is simply to say that, except for the O.J. Simpson trial, nothing lasts forever. This, too, will pass.