Roman Around

The Untouchables and The Twilight Zone were still a year away, but Chuck Berry’s all-time classic “Johnny B. Goode” was new and burning up turntables across the map. Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis Presley were still alive. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was born. And yes, the damn New York Yankees won yet another World Series.

It was also the year that brought the coolest month of June to New York City in thirty years.

It was 1958.

In fact, beginning in 1929, there hadn’t been a New York City June any cooler than the one that gripped the five boroughs that year.

So, what’s my point?

Just a quick exercise in dealing with reality.

Can you guess which year brought the second coolest June to the Big Apple since 1929? 

(insert drumroll here) 

If you said 2009, you are the winner. Take a hip-hip-hooray out of petty cash.

That’s right – this year has brought the second coolest June to New York City in eighty years.

As traitors and turncoats to planet Earth continue to deny that the world hangs perilously in the balance thanks to the imminent dangers of man-made global warming, temperatures last month averaged only 67.5 degrees Fahrenheit here – the eighth coolest June since four years after the Civil War ended.

But don’t allow things like cooler temperature readings blind you to the realities of a planet see-sawing precariously over the pits of ineluctable destruction.

Thank God human beings are causing temperatures across the globe to rise to near catastrophic levels. Thank goodness man-made global warming is propelling the Earth to almost irreparable levels of damage.

New York City might have been debilitated with the coming of a premature, crippling ice age otherwise.

Only human selfishness, indulgence and the thirst for profits helped to save us this time.

Freon, lead cans and Pampers for all!

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