I love a natural summer breeze. I do.
But the latest slam on air conditioning as a hedonistic luxury fires me up.
Here's one of the leading proponents of the pie-in-the-sky ideal that we should go back to sitting on the porch of an evening with Andy and Aunt Bee:
A couple of weekends ago it was in the high 80s here in Kansas. I was in my living room with the ceiling fan going, and I thought, man, it’s really nice in here, so I went and got a thermometer, and it was 84 in the living room. I had an aunt who was always trying to economize and would keep her windows shut up and her air conditioning on 80 degrees, and that was utterly stifling. You just couldn’t exist in that kind of environment, but if you have no air conditioning and plenty of ventilation and air movement, it’s comfortable. Warmth in and of itself is not bad at all. It can even be quite enjoyable.
The high 80s, huh? Wow. Steamy. Have you been to inner-city Dallas in August? The Mississippi Delta in the summer? Hell, the American Midwest can melt the roof of your mouth onto your tongue during certain summer days.
So, mister-my-old-aunt-is-a-fool-for-using-air-conditioning, shut the fuck up.
Air conditioning transformed Southern life. The television did more to bring Aunt Bee and Andy off the porch than having a livable temperature inside ever did.
As for your silly aunt, she might be alive today because she relies on air conditioning rather than a box fan. Old and sick people succumb to the heat. As in die.
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