This was always the time of year I liked best at home in Jamestown.

It was the peak of hot weather, just before the leaves on a maple tree outside my window would start fading from green to dark red with tinges of orange and yellow.

I could get away with going shoeless all the time and liked to run through the backyard while the sun went down on the bright green grass, a site that still is, to me, one of the most beautiful.

Summer evenings are most perfect in my opinion in Western New York. At home in June, I paused at the silence in the middle of the night with the window open as a cool breeze came in. Forget sleeping with the windows open in South Florida — save it for January when the AC isn’t on full blast all the time.

I have many memories of lazy days spent in or by the pool at my parents’ house, or going for ice cream at The Shack in Lakewood. How I miss that Perry’s Ice Cream fireball flavor the most.

I also miss the scent of rain evaporating off the street on a hot August evening, and how the sun came down on the back nine at Maplehurst Country Club.

It was that weather, and a few summer trips to Florida, that sparked in me the desire to live where it’s warm all year-round.

It is blazing hot in the Florida Keys right now with droves of people flocking to the beach or closest pool to cool off. It still catches me off guard seeing a barefoot, shirtless man wandering through the grocery store, or a woman in a bikini strolling casually through the deli. Then I remember where I am.

The air conditioning in my car broke a few months back. It’s a good thing I don’t have far to go. I spend about 20 minutes at most in my car on any given day. Even then, the extreme heat doesn’t bother me much.

“You should get that thing fixed,” most people say, except for my boss who has been driving a black car with a broken AC for three years. He gets it, probably because he’s from New York, too, and landed in the Keys 23 years ago.

I think he saw a bit of himself in my application email, a cold kid looking for a new start in paradise. What an opportunity. I never would have forgiven myself had I turned down this job.

With that being said, here’s to one year of living in Florida, the anniversary of which was celebrated Aug. 9.

I just keep truckin’ and say in the best way possible with a nod to the Grateful Dead: What a long strange trip it’s been.