I’m from East Texas and sometimes it’s wonderful. Winters aren’t as harsh, spring and fall are just as wonderful. When it comes summer though, good grief! You can’t walk out the back door without melting. What I mean is, you can feel yourself sink into the earth, or pavement as liquid. It’s like opening an oven door on Thanksgiving. I’m fairly certain I would have never made in the times before air conditioning. How did the people do it?
My Grandmother once told me,”pretty much everyone would stop and take breaks while working the fields”. Now the majority of the population either have tractors that do all the work and most of those have air conditioned cabs.
Dad used to tell us about how he would get up in the middle of the night, go outside to the well and pour water over his head and rush back upstairs so the air coming in the windows would possibly cool his soaked body. He even said sometimes he would take his sheets and wet them, put them back on the bed.
Everyone in town pretty much talked about nothing else except for the heat. “Hot enough for ya?” “Do ya think it could get much hotter?” “Lord do we need a couple days rain, crops are going bad”. “Might as well go to the creek, nothing else to do”.
Ladies fanned themselves in church and the men whiped the moisture from their faces with handkerchiefs, kids figdeted on the wooden pews and everyone prayed for rain. After church everyone had lunch and watermelon cooled from the nearby stream.
Most everyone had a porch, sitting on the porch in the evenings is how lots of folks battled the heat. So, we here are now. Spoiled to the luxury of the air conditioner. That cool air that spreads all over you when you come inside during this time of year. We now tend to take it for granted unless a unit goes out and we have to either call the repair guy, or go buy another one. We’ve become a generation of whiners. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not all that hopped up about going back in time to sweat it out on the front porch. However I do worry about people who don’t have access to cool air. There are lots of places you can help, Red Cross is always looking for donations of fans, and older a/c units that work. Good Will is another place to donate. Check on your elderly neighbors and make sure they are ok. Lots of ways to help out.
I sometimes wish I could have lived in those days, however July in East Texas? I think I’m ok living in today.
Someone turn the A/C on please???
