Opinion: When 41 Degrees In Hamptons Will Seem Like 88

It's been as cold as cold can be in the Hamptons so far in 2018. Ice, snow and high arctic winds have made the East End of Long Island seem like the east end of the North Pole. Dead car batteries, icy driveways, narrow shoveled snow paths and morning frosted windshields on cars not garaged has been the daily norm for way too many. That is why this Tuesday's forecast of 41 degrees sounds like a day in Cancun, Mexico for me.

For the last week, social media has been wallpapered with posts showing cold pets, cold people and, of course, folks on tropical vacations. I for one have been using my warmest gear to survive time outside. However I must confess I do still run out to the mailbox to fetch the morning paper in my bathrobe pre-morning breakfast and shower. It's been real cold doing that and I have been recording my "fastest time ever" doing that this last week. Slippers with no socks in snow is never smart. But as I have loved to say my whole life, "I didn't go to medical school because my folks couldn't afford it."

So now I am aiming at feeling the 41 degree heat of this coming Tuesday. Will I wear shorts and a T-shirt like I did for that first warm day after winter while at college? Will I drive around in my car playing Layla by Derek and the Dominos with my car windows down? Will I buy a frisbee and head to a park and find someone to toss it with? No! No! No! Why? Because we will still have dirty, icy, semi-melting snow everywhere.

Okay, I love cross country skiing, and I actually was snowshoeing with my wife in single digit weather this last Saturday but I also love Atlantic Beach swims in August. I just did see a photo of Sammy's Beach, East Hampton, (a place I swim most summer days) and this morning it resembles the frozen Arctic Ocean.

Now there is always beauty in "nature." The photos of the frigid East End have been amazing. I am sure there is even an amazing photo you, the reader, fancied this very day; however you, too, are smiling when you read, 41 degrees on Tuesday! The bad news is the forecast also says, "Freezing rain and snow flurries on Monday."

That is what will make Tuesday be even more like 88 degrees in August to me. If you are out and about Tuesday you just might catch me getting my mail at the East Hampton post office. I just might be the guy wearing the Hawaiian shirt!