We\u2019ve \u201cendured\u201d a long stretch of hot weather lately, mostly in the 80\u2019s. Whenever there\u2019s a hot spell, a flock of \u201cexperts\u201d swarm to the media to offer advice on keeping cool. The cat and dog people step in with their advice too. Us old coots get a chuckle every time the weather advisors take the stage. Our society can\u2019t deal with the environment anymore. We\u2019ve been spoiled by air conditioning. It\u2019s everywhere: in our cars, our homes and the places where we shop, dine and work. We\u2019ve lost the ability to cope with summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we were kids (in the good old days) we got a drink from a hose, not from a bottle of chilled water from France. Our parents warned us when we did, \u201cBe careful. Don\u2019t blow your brains out!\u201d Of course, it never worked. We\u2019d put the hose in our mouth and trusted that our friends would turn it on gradually. Instead, they cranked it up to full blast. It\u2019s why my generation is so dumb. We blew our brains out getting a drink from a hose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a lot harder keeping cool in those days. People didn\u2019t have air conditioning in their houses or pools in their back yards, except for those metal framed, canvas, kiddy ones that were one-foot deep. We didn\u2019t care that our legs hung over the side; we\u2019d lie down in the tepid water and pretend we were swimming at the lake. It wasn\u2019t too exciting, but it cooled us off. It didn\u2019t take much to entertain a bunch of kids who had blown their brains out with a hose. We\u2019d also spend hours running around under the sprinkler or taking turns soaking each other with a hose, a pail of water or squirt guns, the kind that had to be refilled after about ten squirts. We would have killed for one of the half-gallon soakers that today\u2019s kids have at their disposal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You had to learn to sleep \u201chot\u201d in those days. Sleeping \u201chot\u201d was an art. You had to fluff up the sheet just right, so it didn\u2019t cling to your skin and turn your pillow over every half hour to get to the cool side. You never fell into a deep sleep on a hot night back then. You just made the best of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We may not have had air conditioning when I was a kid, but we had something better, Kool-Aid. Nothing was quite as satisfying as a glass of frosty Kool-Aid on a dog day afternoon. Especially the way we made it, with a full cup of sugar, two if mom wasn\u2019t watching. Some lucky folks had a second-floor back porch. It was a perfect place to slumber on a narrow cot or a hired man\u2019s bed on a hot night. People bragged if they had a sleeping porch, not unlike they do today if they have central air. We didn\u2019t need \u201cexperts\u201d to tell us how to cope with the weather. Ours was a self-reliant society. We didn\u2019t complain about it. It was what we waited for all winter. It\u2019s why you see us old coots outdoors when the temperature heats up. We enjoy it, those of us who aren\u2019t intimidated by the media alarmists. Of course, we don\u2019t know any better; we blew our brains out drinking from a hose when we were kids!<\/p>\n\n\n\n