As we suffered through the ninety and one hundred degrees temperatures of June this year, I couldn't help but recall the days of my youth--when air conditioning didn't exist in most areas of Oxford--at least those I was familiar with. We counted on afternoon thunderstorms and cooling rains for relief that would allow sleep through hot, steamy nights. Window fans were a luxury, but small oscillating fans ran 24-7. Even downtown merchants flung doors wide open and kept tall fans blowing through that space to help cool stores so customers would be comfortable.
Today I think about how wilted I feel as I move about in the extreme temperatures and how much hotter it seems than in years before. In reality, I believe that we are all spoiled to the coolness and the lack of humidity we experience through the wonders of those electrical units running all around us. We tend to hibernate in summer months, staying out of the true outdoors. How soft we are since becoming conditioned to cool temperatures of our inside worlds. Would heat bother us if we had never known conditioned cool? Perhaps seasons would be just a passing of time and temps, a normal course of things, a condition we just tolerate--like it used to be.
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August 2016
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