Melting In This Heat

It’s become so hot here in Cochin and I think the rest of Kerala is no better off as well. From February onwards the state starts to heat up and we go into proper summer from March onwards. Ofcourse we have no winter season or spring or fall – just heat, monsoon and more heat. But the period between March & June until the monsoon season starts is the worst and it’s just getting worse every year. We need some cooling down like no other places does. Ofcourse I guess we aren’t the most sunniest or hottest place on the planet, that might go to one of the desert areas or some place in Africa, I guess. However, we have the humidity factor and that just makes things worse.

Today has been a real scorcher and it didn’t help that I left the office at 1pm to go to the bank. Scorching heat! I was left to a puddle of mess in no time and once my work at the bank was done, I crossed the street to a small joint where they served cold fresh fruit juice. With ice! I had an orange juice which worked for about 5 minutes cause I was in the hot sun again. I quickly took an auto and headed back to the office – I was gone all of 25 minutes but I was so drained and so tired that I just couldn’t do anything else but drink around 500ml of water in one gulp and then felt so full that I skipped lunch. The rest of the day was me feeling so drowsy and tired that I put my feet up and relaxed till it was quitting time.

Even at 5pm it was blazing hot and the sun was in full form. On the way back home, I bought a 2 liter bottle of 7up which I then proceeded to put in the freezer for making it nice and chilled so dad, mom & I could enjoy it with our southern fried chicken dinner. Oh the heat, the heat!

RIP Stompin’ Tom Connors

Yesterday Canadian icon and well-known country / folk singer Stompin’ Tom Connors passes away due to natural causes at the age of 77. Focusing his career exclusively on his native Canada, Connors is credited with writing more than 300 songs and has released four dozen albums, with total sales of nearly 4 million copies.

Born Charles Thomas Connors (known as Tommy Messer) in Saint John, New Brunswick he was was later adopted by the Aylward family in Skinners Pond, Prince Edward Island. At the age of 15 he left his adoptive family to hitchhike across Canada, a journey that consumed the next 13 years of his life as he travelled between various part-time jobs while writing songs on his guitar. Typically writing about Canadian lore and history, some of Connors’ better-known songs include “Bud the Spud”, “Big Joe Mufferaw”, “The Black Donnellys”, “The Martin Hartwell Story”, “Reesor Crossing Tragedy”, “Sudbury Saturday Night” and “The Hockey Song” (also called “The Good Old Hockey Game”); the last is frequently played over sound systems at NHL games.

Connors’ habit of stomping the heel of his left boot to keep rhythm earned him the nickname “that stompin’ guy”, or “Stomper”. It wasn’t until Canada’s 100th birthday, July 1, 1967, that the name Stompin’ Tom Connors was first used, when Boyd MacDonald, a waiter at the King George Tavern in Peterborough, Ontario introduced Tom on stage. Fearcely nationalist, he famously boycotted the Junos for protesting the fact that Canadian musical artists living and based in the US were eligible for awards. He felt that in view of the fact that they had chosen to live and work in the U.S., it was only fair that they competed with Americans for Grammy Awards, and left the Juno competition to those who lived and conducted business in Canada.