DOWN HOME: Hot dog, it’s time to talk about hell

Some people call these the “dog days” of summer. If you ask me, that seems awfully unfair to canines.

This is the time of year when the thermometer regularly tops the 100-degree mark. It’s the time of year that gives our Lone Star State a bad name among folks from more temperate climes.

(OK, raise your hand if you’ve secretly taken pleasure from the suffering of others this summer. In June and early July, the Mid-Atlantic states roasted. And then parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama endured heat index numbers in the hundred-and-teens. I hear pollsters recorded an all-time high belief in a literal hell among cityfolk in the South.)

If you live in the Texas Panhandle, where I grew up, or in West Texas, you can console yourself by acknowledging what you feel is a “dry heat” this time of year. But if you live in other parts of the state, sometimes you get baked by temperatures on the high side of 100 and relative humidity above 90 percent.

This is the kind of weather that makes you want to climb into something more comfortable. Like a swimming pool. Or your barbecue smoker.

Isn’t it interesting how the debate over global warming cools off in the summer?

But like I was saying, this is what’s called the “dog days” of summer.

When I was a kid, I thought we called them “dog days” because even dogs don’t like to go outside in the middle of summer. Or maybe because it’s so hot it makes people want to lie around like dogs in the shade.

The other day, I wondered where the term “dog days” actually came from and what it really means. So, I turned to the arbiter of just about everything people don’t know for sure. Wikipedia.

Turns out, the term is older than I thought. Among the earliest people who called this time of year “dog days” were the ancient Romans, who actually called it dies caniculares, which is Latin for “days dogs.”

The old Romans associated hot weather with the star Sirius, which is called the Dog Star, because it is the brightest point in the constellation Canis Major, or Large Dog. Sirius also happens to be the second-brightest star in our sky, behind the big dog of them all, the sun.

If you think you get serious about the heat this time of year, consider the Romans, please. Every year, they sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the “dog days,” in order to placate the rage of Sirius, whom they believed brought on the heat.

Well, I never would sacrifice my dog, Topanga, to the Dog Star. But I get her hair cut and make sure she has plenty of water this time of year.

Isn’t it interesting how the heat turns people’s attention to religion? The Romans offered sacrifices, and the old-time Texans held brush-arbor revivals. Probably has something to do with hot folks’ responsiveness to the notion of hell.