I am one of those people who abhors air conditioning. It throws off my sense of balance. It’s summer. It’s hot. It’s supposed to be hot. My mind and body feel schizophrenic when I go from air conditioning to outside, back and forth, from the car to the store to work to home. Yes, this summer there have been some really uncomfortable days when it was hard to breathe. But that is nothing new. After all, it’s SUMMER TIME! Part of the problem is that we (and in saying we, I really mean they, someone other than me) cannot deal with discomfort. Ok, maybe the sun is hotter than it was when I was younger, but I believe that if we gave our bodies time to adjust to the heat and humidity, it would.

When I was a kid (oh, here she goes) we didn’t have air conditioning, well most people I knew didn’t have air conditioning. We had a fan. We went swimming if we were hot. We put a cool cloth on the back of our neck and relaxed under the comfort of a shade tree. I remember my mom packing up however many kids there were at the time into the back of the old 62 Chevy station wagon, and driving down to the town pool on a hot afternoon. She’d sit under the trees and let us cool off in the man-made pool that was fed by a natural stream. Sometimes, if it was really hot, we’d go back after supper. If not, we always had popsicles or hoodsie ice cream cups. There was a huge maple tree in the backyard that offered a canopy of leaves to keep us cool. In the morning and early afternoon, the front porch with it’s cool concrete floor, was the place to sit and read a book. By three or four in the afternoon the sun would have come around and it would get very hot on that porch, but still we would stay there and play or read or talk. Somehow we got used to the summer air and the heat and humidity that went along with it. Our bodies adjusted.

I miss those days, however, I admit, there were days this summer I was grateful for the one little air conditioner that kept the dining room and kitchen relatively cool. On those really hot and humid days I walked into the house with a sigh of relief. But always, after a time, I longed to throw open all the windows, shut off the air conditioner, put a cool cloth on the back of my neck and sweat it out.

I know. I know. What about the elderly? What about our pets? To that I say, use the air conditioning to bring some comfort and relief. But does it have to be set at 68 or 69? Can’t it be set at 73 or 74, enough to keep it comfortable without having to pull out the afghans and blankets just to sit in the living room?

Here’s to September and October. I can’t wait for fall.