When my beat-up white Tempo made me break out in sweat a couple days ago, I knew the dog days had returned.

As the air conditioner cooled my car on the drive from Lawrence to Tonganoxie, my mind drifted back to a childhood summer spent in my hometown of Latham, Kansas.

Latham has a population small enough to fit inside most minivans, so my summer fun options were limited in those days.

Besides getting in trouble, there weren’t a whole lot to do. I was too young to appreciate the beauty of the nature that surrounded me, except on a few rare occasions, and the prospects for summer work were scarce for an 8-year-old.

Luckily there were three other boys my age in town.

Paul was my cousin we called him Booger for obvious reasons. I’d known Paul since I was a baby, and he was my best friend.

David was pretty cool, but he never brushed his teeth, and I’m sure he was allergic to any kind of water except for the creek water we waded through looking for snakes.

The third boy, Tommy, was different from the rest of us. He was from El Dorado, the biggest town in Butler County.

He didn’t like snakes. He didn’t like turtles. He didn’t think it was cool to chew tobacco. He didn’t like shooting birds with his BB gun. He didn’t even have a BB gun. He thought creek water was icky. He was a city boy and he wasn’t one off us.

Sure, we all liked him well enough: partly because he was an all right guy, but mostly because he had a lot of cool toys.

I remember the summer that Tommy got a fishing pole. We decided to take him fishing to show him the “advantages” that we, as country boys, had over him in the fishing department.

After all, David, Paul and I had been fishing the ponds and creeks around Latham our whole lives: Tommy was afraid to touch a fish. It was time to illustrate our superiority.

So one bright July morning, the four of us started walking east out of town down the dirt road to a creek on some land that David’s dad had.

We were ready.

I had three fishing poles, five different sizes of line, a shovel to dig for worms and a tackle box full of all kinds of lures that I’d never use fishing a creek for catfish and bluegill. But you never knew.

Paul and David were similarly outfitted, except they were carrying some worms Paul had dug the previous night in preparation for the day’s events.

Paul had thought it was a good idea to put the worms in the freezer to keep them good all night. Consequently the four of us had to pass the frozen coffee can around to avoid mid-summer frostbite.

Tommy had brought his new Zebco 404, a Walkman, a case of tapes, a six-pack of Coke and some bologna.

When we got to the spot, the three Latham natives had a ceremonial pre-fishing chew and turned green while trying to look cool. Tommy steadfastly refused Skoal, and instead whipped out a breakfast bar his mommy had packed for him.

Shortly, Tommy was done with his breakfast, and the rest of us had spit away our dips (you can do that pretty fast when you never stop spitting). It was time to fish.

We laughed at Tommy when he put a piece of bologna on his hook. Then we laughed at Paul as he used his pocketknife to pry bits off worm off the frozen chunk of dirt in the coffee can.

David and I decided to leave them, and take my shovel to dig some worms. Neither of us was interested in fishing with bologna or wormsicles.

By the time we got back with the worms, we had been at the creek for an hour. Paul had abandoned the frozen worm cause and was trying to talk Tommy into letting him eat some of his bologna.

The worms we had dug worked pretty well for David and me. In four hours we had caught several good-sized bullheads.

Paul hadn’t caught anything, because he was using some kind of deep-sea lure, being too proud to use my inferior never-been-frozen worms.

Tommy had caught 20 fish.

No catfish wanted anything to do with Tommy’s bologna, but the bluegill loved it. As a way of rubbing his success in our faces, he would sing the Oscar Meyer bologna song after every catch.

Every now and then he would try to throw in a verse about frozen worms, but he didn’t know how to spell “frozen” so it never worked out.

Paul never was accused of having a mild temper, and nobody should have been surprised when the 300th rendition of “Oscar Meyer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A” was followed by a splash, followed by “I’m gonna tell my mommy.”

Things died down after that, and we went home. Looking back, I learned some lessons about life that day:

Put worms in the refrigerator, not the freezer.

Bluegill like bologna.

Never eat bologna after a bluegill has.

No matter how many hooks it has on it, deep-sea lures never work in four feet of water.

If you’re standing around when someone pushes someone else in the water, you’re an accomplice and get grounded, too.