See ya, summer siesta

The summer siesta, as if, is officially over.

The summer used to be a time to catch my breath here at Journal world headquarters, but no longer. No games to cover, but a lot more content comes through the inbox and the new website http://oksportsreview.com is growing bigger each day.

Check it out. Now. Or, at least as you finish reading this insightful column. It’s stories about Oklahoma sports, from the professionals to the high schools. And, a special bonus, no Arkansas crud!

Schools have already started or will soon. Trish the Wife no longer can sleep until noon since she is busy educating students.

It is still hot, like you didn’t know that, but cooler temperatures should arrive by, say Thanksgiving.

The monsoon season for LeFlore County arrived on Wednesday, at least for a day. There were winds blowing up to 75 mph in Poteau with rain coming down in sheets. You can check out the video HERE. I almost broke an arm off by simply opening the door, got a wind gust and soaked in approximately half a second.

Several trees were lost at Choctaw Country Club and houses in south Poteau were damaged by the high winds.

Typically, we don’t have to worry about those types of weather outbreaks this time of the year. We just have to worry about if we will get any rain during August.

Everybody is complaining about the heat and saying it’s because of global warming. Okay. Each day in our weather forecast on the Journal, I list the record highs for the particular date.

Several days recently, the record high was from the dreaded summer of 2011. But there have also been record highs from back in 1936 of well over 100 degrees.

I didn’t suffer through that summer. My parents were only a year old so they weren’t even dreaming about having a child, even one as brilliant as, uh, my brother Brian. Speaking of brother Brian, he just had his 51^st birthday yesterday. I used to think people of our age group were pretty much ancient.

Sometimes, my view has not changed.

Think it’s rough now? Air conditioning was rare in most homes and business offices back in those dark ages. I imagine the body odor factor was rather pungent, even more so than now, eh?

For those of you bored about the dog days of summer, there are plenty of activities coming up (which you can read about in our county calendar!) with fastpitch softball games already being played and football coming soon.

So far, we just have the practices. But the scrimmages start next week and the first game for county teams is Aug. 30 when those fighting Panama Razorbacks host Gore. The other county teams get started the following night.

Plus, you Poteau Pirate fans out there can get a preview Saturday night when the Red-White scrimmage is held at 7 p.m. at Costner Stadium.