Now for those who have good memories of the past, let me just share with you a simple phrase - heat wave! Heat and humidity, as we are presently experiencing, can be very hard to bear - especially without air conditioning!
Unfortunately I remember the days before air conditioning and what we often had to do just to survive. And survive we did.
My parents grew up and lived most of their lives without air conditioning. In their later years they did have two window conditioners that provided some relief. But they never had central air and they never complained because that is all they really knew all of their lives.
As a youngster, I remember "suffering" with the heat. On the worst nights I would take a pillow downstairs to the living room and try to get comfortable on the floor in front of the open side door. Sometimes a slight breeze could be felt there. And there was nothing else we could do. It was the best we could do.
And until I went to college my parents never had a car with air conditioning. In the early years only the "rich" had ac in their cars ands we certainly weren't rich. We drove with all the windows open. Now when you buy a car you just assume that it has ac.
When we were first married we bought a large window fan that used to pull in the cooler air through other open windows. That provided a little relief. A few years later we bought a window air conditioner and that was an excellent improvement. Finally in 1991 we were able to afford to invest in central air and it was like heaven. Now I don't know how we'd survive without it.
But my worst experiences without ac came during my first 25 years of teaching. During those years I taught and had my office on the third floor of a building with a flat roof. Because of the layout of the rooms there was little cross ventilation. And my office and the classrooms that I usually taught in were on the morning sun side of the building and caught the early morning rays of sun. Often when I began the day, the rooms were already at 90 degrees. And the temperature never dropped throughout the day.
Teaching and working in those conditions was a major challenge. I would often be soaked by the end of the first period. Eventually we bought a floor fan for each math classroom to try and at least move some air. And while we proposed some possible solutions with large exhaust fans to the administration, nobody was willing to provide the funds to do so. And they didn't even appear in our area during those times. And, of course, the office area was air conditioned. It was probably the only time in my life that I actually enjoyed attending meetings when they were held in the office area.
I don't know how anybody actually learned anything in that situation during the hot days of the late spring and late summer months.
My biggest joy came when our building was finally remodeled and expanded. And everything was then air conditioned. What a change! Teaching then was again fun.
We also spent a summer in Florida while I was attending Florida State. And it was hot, but everything there was air conditioned and that made it bearable. However, it actually wasn't as humid there as it usually is in Lancaster County.
Now you younger readers really have no understanding of what I am sharing. Be glad you don't. But for you older readers who yearn for the "good old days", maybe you should think about how things really were. And pray that you don't lose your electricity and ac in these miserable hot and humid days.
No comments:
Post a Comment