Whew! It looks like summer has arrived. It’s kind of hot. And it’s only the last full week in June. July is coming next week. And if things go the way they have in past years August will arrive the day after July. I’m no meteorologist, but I’m willing to go out on a limb here and predict we’re going to have more really hot days.
I can’t complain too much about this June’s temperatures. I brought the heat upon myself. There’s no explaining what got into me. Maybe it was a conversation with my brother where we reminisced about the old days. Back then things were not like they are now. Back then we had no central air conditioning, and it wasn’t until I was in high school that we got a window unit for the kitchen. There was one summer when the temperature got to a couple degrees over one hundred. Then I wondered if, at my advanced age, I was half the man I was when I was twelve. I challenged my now-self to enter into a contest with my old-self.
I walked halfway down the hall, faced the thermostat, reached out and turned the air conditioning off. If I could handle the heat back then surely I could do it now.
Did I mention it’s hot this summer? It seems to me it’s really, really hot. It’s just amazing how warm the house gets. And in the afternoon that sun just erupts through the front windows. I closed the doors to those rooms in an attempt to trap the heat there. I thought heat rises, but, apparently, it does have the capacity to slip through the cracks at the bottom of the doors.
In a flash of inspiration I made two adjustments. The ceiling fans were turned on to circulate the air. I think I remember in high school science class Mrs. Traywick saying that moving air was cooler. It did seem to help. It, at least, enhanced the evaporation of sweat off my body.
Not one to do things halfway, my now-self extended the challenge beyond the house to the car. You see, back when my old-self was active the car, also, was devoid of air conditioning.
I think I mentioned a few paragraphs above that it’s really hot this summer. It you’re not sure you agree, there’s a way to test my proposition. Leave the car in the sun a few hours. Then, get in your car. Don’t turn on the air conditioning. You can let the windows down. That helps a bit when the car’s moving.
I have to tell you: my old-self was a really tough cookie. My old-self was no wimp. But, I’ve discovered the contest between my now-self and my old-self isn’t really fair. The odds are tilted in the direction of my old-self. Tough as I remember him to be he had too many advantages with dealing with the summer heat.
There were two advantages. First was the design of those older automobiles. They had four front windows, two on each side. One was that little triangular vent window. You could rotate that window so direct a tremendous blast of wind onto your body.
The second advantage was in the hallway of the old house. It was the hallway attic fan. Turn those on and open the windows and the air flowed.
I’ll never win this contest without vent windows and an attic fan.
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