Islanders don’t need to follow a calendar or listen to the weather report to know when they are slogging through the dog days of summer.
They can read the signs: Cottages and condos get closed up tight, with air-conditioners running 24/7. Iced tea turns to warm tea. Dogs pant. Cats sleep. Hair frizzes. Car steering wheels singe the hands. Steam rises from the pavement after a rain. And nearly everyone finds a way to ask, “Hot enough for you?”
The dog days of summer traditionally were from July 3 to Aug. 11 in the northern hemisphere, when the Romans saw the Dog Star — Sirius — join the sun at sunrise and disappear from the sky all night, according to the national Astronomical League.
This was considered an evil period when “the seas boiled, wine turned sour, Quinto raged in anger, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies,” according to “Clavis Calendarium,” an 1813 text containing historical and classical anecdotes about calendar events.
There are no longer specific astronomical dates for the “dog days of summer,” which in the United States has widely come to generically apply to the hottest days of the summer season.
Many Islanders say August brings the steamiest days.
So The Islander posed the question to readers: “When you think of the dog days of summer, what comes to mind?”
• Richard Burton replied, “Air-conditioning.”
• Mike Sales observed, “I’ve got to walk the dog much more in August, because it’s so hot that he has to stay indoors. If I fail to wear him out, he’ll take it out on my shoes — or something.”
• Cindy Quinn noted a positive, “Kids going back to school. Yea.”
• Keena Young Baker thought of “my shoes sticking into the pavement.”
• Paul Taylor rejoiced. “No crowds and dining out again,” he said.
• Angela Logan succinctly replied, “Sweat.”