At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s hot. Like really, really hot. Even by our usual Texas furnace summer standards.

My usual 5:30 a.m. walk leaves me drenched, when it is usually pleasant in the wee hours. Yesterday, I had to dart out to my car to retrieve something I had forgotten in the back seat and loathed giving up my air-conditioned existence for even a moment.

I haven’t always been this spoiled. Until high school, our classrooms were not air-conditioned and we all made it just fine...