The DU Lounge

I'm 74 and I was stationed in the California desert (Victorville), Phoenix, Clovis, NM, Sacramento, and Florida so I was exposed to high temperatures. While at Victorville, I was part of a crew that transferred our field hospital to Luke AFB (Phoenix). We set it up in the middle of summer when it was 115 degrees. We set up our tents, unloaded our aircraft pallets, dug shallow ditches for our electrical cables from the generators, ran through exercises, and repackaged everything back onto the aircraft pallets. Our bioenvironmental people calculated we'd work 15 minutes in the heat and rest 45 minutes. The other guy from my shop and I were used to working in the heat so we worked 45 minutes and rested 15 minutes.

While stationed in Phoenix, in the summer, I'd wait until about 9 pm for the temperature to go below 95 degrees before I'd take my five mile nightly run. I turned on my apartment air conditioner twice; once when I moved in and once when I moved out to prove it worked.

Whenever I went to Las Vegas, I'd take a 1 -2 mile walk from the downtown area and back during the day.

Now, when it gets above 80, I tend to stay indoors or only walk a short distance. Fortunately, where I'm at we're usually in the mid - high 70s with some low 80s days in August. I have no air conditioner and don't need one because I'm about a half-mile from the beach and half-mile from San Diego Bay where we get cool breezes.