Christmas ‘79 was first time mom enjoyed ‘summer’ in winter

By John Toth

The Bulletin

I drove 1,688 miles in 1979 to take a reporting job at the Bay City Tribune, not really knowing what I’d get into, only that I had a job right after graduating from college in the field that I got a degree in, which was rare at the time.

I knew that it was hot in these parts of Texas, since I got here in May and made it through my first summer here in a car without air conditioning.

Just wait, they said. You won’t regret coming to Texas.

I never did regret it. This state has been very good to me, and for that I am very grateful. But back in those early days, when I was sweating through every piece of clothing I wore while driving under the hot sun in the middle of the day, it was questionable whether this open sauna was the right climate for me.

Then came fall and finally December, when my mother visited for Christmas.

I met her at the airport. The temperature was in the mid 70s. She wore a thick coat as we walked outside. I wore jeans and a short-sleeved polo shirt. It was the first time she felt warmth outside in the winter.

“John, it’s summer here,” she said as we drove through the maze of highways that wind through Houston. It was sort of summer, more like summer in the northeast, where she lived.

When I wasn’t working at the paper, we spent most of the days outside.

We had a great Christmas together. One day I drove her down to the mouth of the Colorado River, where we were the only people around, and all that could be heard other than our voices were the birds and the waves washing ashore.

We had a quiet Christmas, just the two of us, with windows open at mom’s request. I had to close them before we went to bed because I was getting cold. As soon as we woke up, though, the windows were opened again - not by me.

Mom flew back to her home (which used to be our home until I moved to Texas) a few days after Christmas. I handed her coat to her as she got out of the car at the airport.

“Here, you’ll need this once you land,” I said.

I called her on New Year’s Eve to tell her that a Canadian cold front moved down here, and it was freezing at night. It stayed that way for a few days.

“Good thing I left when I did. I’ve been telling everyone how it was summer there in the winter.”

After her holiday visit, I decided to stay for several reasons: It was really hard to find a reporting job at the time, and I already had one; I could tolerate heat better than cold, and I really hate cold weather; and I very much enjoyed my mother’s escape from winter each year, which she did for the next five years before she passed away.

I made the right decision. Sharon, The Bulletin’s summer-in-the-winter editor, will second me on that.