Summers in Alabama

Funny how back in the sixties, before central air conditioning, we survived sweltering Alabama summers without blinking an eye. I don't remember ever getting unbearably hot when I was a kid. We stayed outside all the time, so we were just used to it, I guess. We had a huge fan in the ceiling of our hallway that we used to "cool" the house. We would open all the windows in the house and turn on this monstrous attic fan, which would pull in a nice breeze throughout every room. I always thought the breeze felt wonderful! I would sprawl out on our cold quarry tile floor and let that breeze just blow all my cares away.

Then one day...

Daddy brought home an air conditioner...

Thrill of all thrills, this window unit actually blew freezing cold air into the room. Daddy said he just couldn't bear the heat at home after working in an air conditioned building all day at work - It's all in what your used to.  That was the beginning of the end of attic fan comfort as I had once known it.

Daddy installed the A/C in the master bedroom and kept the door shut, so there was only one room in the house in which we could escape what had suddenly become ungodly, unbearable heat. Many times we'd pile up on Mama and Daddy's bed and watch movies. If there were peas or butterbeans to shell, that's where we'd go to shell 'em. Laundry to fold? Mama's room. We watched TV in there sometimes, too, when we could get away with it. I don't know how many times I got yelled at for leaving the master bedroom door open. "You're letting all the air out!!!!!!!!" (That was what I was actually hoping for.) Once we had a taste of cold, dehumidified air, there was no turning back. After numerous battles over leaving the bedroom door open, or excessive numbers of children invading the master's domain, we ended up getting a second window unit for the den.

Looking back I suppose the summers of childhood were no cooler than they are now - We just can't handle 'em like we used to. If we were smart, we'd go back to the old days of attic fans and open windows, and save ourselves a few hundred bucks a year. Anybody up to up? Let's boycott air conditioning! (Yeah, right.)