Keeping cool

When you consider all the ways our lives have changed in the past century, you have to wonder if we humans, as organisms, haven't been modified in the process.

We used to be shorter, for example. My generation, born near the end of World War II, produced a fine crop of basketball stars. Adults in my parents' generation attributed the growth spurt to fallout from the atomic bomb. Others pointed to an abundance of food.

How rapidly the world changes was brought home this week when someone mentioned that children born this year could well live to see the 22nd century. The remarkable advances I've witnessed just since the middle of the 20th century makes me wonder what kind of world those 22nd-century inhabitants will find.

What made me think of all this is the first-of-summer heat wave. Much of today's population cannot remember when there was no central air conditioning. There was a time in the Ozarks over yonder that the only real refuge from summer's sting was a special shade tree. Sunday dinners were consumed under those trees, because it was far too hot to eat in the kitchen next to a stove.

Shade trees were little islets of paradise after each load of baled hay had been taken to the barn and stacked in the loft. A glass of cool water from the cistern behind the house was all you needed to recover as you stretched out on the cool grass under the big elm in the corner of the yard.

Evolution? Most people today don't know what a bale of hay is. They wonder why we didn't go inside and watch TV between loads of hay, so we could cool off in front of the air conditioner. How do you explain not having electricity?

Staying cool and having fun in those days relied on water in one way or the other. There were no water parks, but almost every farm home was within walking distance of a spring-fed creek or river or lake. Rope swings took us from high bluffs out over the deep pools below, where we dropped like sacks of groats into the refreshing liquid.

At night we slept with windows and doors wide open. We seldom worried about intruders. It was too dang hot to be a criminal.

My wife and I wondered this week how we survived our early married years without air conditioning. Our first apartment was in the attic of a three-story house. Yes, it was hot.

Our first central air was in the apartment we rented after we moved to Dallas. Everything in Texas was artificially chilled, even in the 1960s. I maintain that if central air had not become so widespread we would have handed Texas back to Mexico.

Along the way we lived in northern Idaho, where nothing was air-conditioned, except the homes of a few well-heeled allergy sufferers. Then we moved to Nevada, Mo., and bought a 100-year-old house with three upstairs bedrooms -- and no AC. We survived, somehow.

Much of today's U.S. population has no experiences like that to relate to. And I wouldn't wish a Southeast Missouri summer night without air conditioning on anyone.

I hope you are staying cool. If you know someone who doesn't have air conditioning or needs a fan, please try to help. I'm confidant that by the time the 22nd century rolls around, this will no longer be an issue.

jsullivan@semissourian.com