Do you know these days? When it gets hot, and stays hot, and keeps staying hot, and the hot sticks to you so that you radiate the heat into the house. When it's so hot the kids would go lay in clover with its sickly sweet scent and the bugs underneath, just to find a bit of cool? When you had to time the length of your bottle of Co'cola, so that it lasted long enough to enjoy, but not so long that it got warm. Working in the heat meant that your neck got sweaty and covered with dirt and dust, but if you touched it, everything just felt worse, so it was better to just leave it alone and be hot. How could everything be so dry and dusty, when we were so sweaty and sticky?!
So, I'm going to tell you a story. It's about the hottest place in the world. Now, I've been to Death Valley, and seen the cool giant thermometer there, and I know about the great deserts across the world. But the hottest place in the world? It's in North Carolina.
My grandfather was a salesman, who often traveled to cities on business trips, including New York. When he introduced himself, saying he was from North Carolina, one pair of businessmen said, oh yes, they knew about places in North Carolina, and proceeded to tell him this tale.
They had traveled into Africa on the trail for raw materials, and had struggled with the wildly oppressive climate there. Unbearably hot, suffering, thick with humidity and clay dust, it made any effort nearly intolerable. Finding respite at an old tropical bar, one favored by black and white movies with long suffering patrons fanning themselves, wondering it they would ever leave (or get ice), the two were discussing the heat.
They each swore they had never been to a place hotter than this. Surely, this was the hottest place on Earth. They had almost made a pact of agreement, when...
An old timer, white suited, wide white brimmed hat, somehow oddly unaffected by the heat, probably due to his advanced age, or a general tolerance, or just being insufferably thin, spoke up. "No, gentlemen, this is NOT the hottest place in the world." When he spoke, his confidence defined the truth of the matter.
Taken aback, the two men said, "Well... where is the hottest place on Earth, then? What place can be hotter than this?" They fanned themselves in exasperation.
The old timer paused to make sure he had full effect and attention... "Have you two gentlemen ever heard of... Goldsboro, North Carolina?"
And to this day, I will still swear that Goldsboro is the hottest place on earth. If you watch regional weather, invariably, Goldsboro is one or two degrees hotter than any place else in the entire state.