The heat index, the talking heads on the tube claim, is over 100. For once, they may be right. It’s hot. Damn hot. Sweaty, dripping, energy-sapping hot. And, if the talking heads continue their streak of recognizing the obvious, we’ve got at least two more days of unseasonably hot weather before some relief arrives this weekend.

Not supposed to get this hot in the mountains. Not by a long shot. Air conditioners on overtime. Electric meters racking up record readings. Emergency rooms overcrowded with heat stroke victims.

They call weather like this the “dog days of summer,” although the usual dog days don’t hit until August. Not just here. Most of the country gripped in record-setting heat. Hot weather hits the elderly the hardest and deaths are up throughout the nation.

Why is it so hot? Environmentalists blame global warming and destruction of the ozone. Scientists point to global shifts. Doomsdayers say it is just judgment day getting closer.

My granddaddy had the answer.

Hot weather, he said, was just God’s way of reminding us he’s still boss.

Reminds me of an evangalist who came through Floyd back in 1962. On a hot August night in an church without air conditioning, he stood before the sweating congregation and delivered the shortest sermon of his career.

“If you think it’s hot now,” he declared, “just wait!”