2023, Family, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Too Darn Hot!

59 Comments

My best friend from Howard Lake texted me on Tuesday to say that the heat index there was 114 degrees. She had never experienced such heat in Minnesota before. It is hot here, too, but not like that.

I wonder how we would cope if there was no air conditioning. I remember as a child we spent a lot of time in the basement on really hot days before my parents had an air conditioner installed in the living room. It was one of those that sat in a hole especially cut in the side of the house. Most of my relatives on farms never had air conditioning in their homes. They just hung out on their porches and tried to keep cool. There was no air conditioning in the school in Luverne. The nights were the worst, as it never really cooled down because of the humidity.

When we moved here in 1987, our house didn’t have air conditioning, and we really didn’t need it because it always cooled down at night. The humidity here is low. After about five years, things changed, the nights didn’t cool down, and we decided to put in Central air. I think that was my first direct knowledge of climate change. I don’t know what we would do without it now.

When did you first live in a home with air conditioning? How did your family cope without it? Share some weather songs.

59 thoughts on “Too Darn Hot!”

  1. about 1960 my family had a window unit installed in the kitchen by the dining room formica table the surface of the formica was so cool you’d just lay your face in it
    kool aid ice cubes with toothpicks stuck in them were the other fix

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  2. I’m feeling very virtuous because I survived the last two days and it doesn’t look like there’s any more over 90 days left in the forecast . No air conditioner.

    R. ight now it is cool and foggy in Saint Paul. I’m in line for the first bus. Everybody have a great day because I’m sure I will!!

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  3. First home with AC was an apartment in New Hope in 1984. Just a noisy in-wall job. First central AC was in our townhouse in Bloomington that we bought in ’87.

    As a kid, we had a lot of popsicles, iced Kool Aid, and a box fan in the upstairs window that sucked hot air out of the house from bottom to top. Most hot nights, it finally got comfortable around 6 am upstairs.

    We also ran through the sprinkler when it was on and had squirt gun fights. Spent a lot of time at (usually) Cedar Lake. When it was unbearable, we retreated to the basement. But the humidity never seemed as bad 50-60 years as it seems today. I think that’s the climate change effect.

    One of the tougher things was going on road trips in the summer in a car with no AC. Didn’t have an AC car until 1991. I remember once in June 1982 driving from Ft. Huachuca, AZ to the Grand Canyon. We left at 5:00 am. By the time we reached Phoenix at 9:00 am it was 100 degrees! We ended up draping wet beach towels over us to keep us cool through evaporation. But driving with the windows down was de rigeur. Couldn’t listen to music or audio books easily back then.

    Songs? How about “Let it Snow”? 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

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  8. I’ve never lived anywhere with central air, but I remember the installation of the first window unit my parents ever owned, when I was about five or so. It was installed in the kitchen window, next to the sliding doors in the dining room. My mother did a lot of cooking in that kitchen, so it was the logical place. That house had a play room for my sister and me in the basement, with those linoleum tiles that were popular in the 60’s.

    My first four cars did not have working air conditioning. A couple of them had never had air conditioning, but had those little vent windows that you could use to angle the air flow and cool yourself off.

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  9. We didn’t have any A/C at home when I was elementary school age. In the summer we kids slept out on the screened in porch. We had a rec room in the basement that stayed pretty cool. Outside we did the things that Chris mentioned – sprinkler, lake, squirt guns – along with a Slip ‘n Slide. We had a window air conditioner installed in our large upstairs bedroom sometime in the 60s. The window was opposite the stairs so the downstairs got a bit cooled as well.

    I bought my upstairs condo in the early 80s. The A/C was just roughed in initially. I wanted to see if I really needed it. The first few years weren’t too bad but then came the summers of 88/89 (I think) which were unbearably hot and dry. My place was like an oven so I had the A/C installed and have never regretted it. I don’t keep my place cold – usually set at 78 0r 79 – but it keeps the humidity out which is what I really want.

    My first car (1974) had vinyl seats and no A/C – only 4 windows down and 70 mph. On a summer trip to Oklahoma the interior got so hot I nearly got burned from the seat belt metal buckle. Every car since then has had A/C (and cloth seats) – don’t use the A/C a ton but it sure is nice when needed.

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  10. So even with the A/C, I still use the summer kitchen some… any baking just has to be outside. I just stepped out the back door to use the toaster oven, and it’s like stepping into a sauna…

    I may have to do a blog post on the Summer Kitchen, with photos… I thought I already had, but don’t find one…

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  11. Rise and Catch the Cool, Baboons,

    We got our AC in 1969 or 1970. My mother could grant herself no comfort easily, so she said, “for your dad’s allergies and MS. The Dr. says it will help.” Until then we would play in the basement, go to the library, or linger other places with AC. This all occurred in NW Iowa, really SouthEast Dakota, so it was hot and windy at all times. The AC was a great relief and it did help my dad’s allergies. AC also relieves my allergies greatly, so we use ours a lot.

    Yesterday due the high heat and humidity, we missed the morning walk which is usually 1-2 miles long. It helps Phoebe behave when she gets a walk. She is also teething in the back of her mouth, so yesterday with her was a challenge. In the evening she sat by the front door, barking at it while she awaited her teenaged evening shift dog walker who waited til dusk to walk her. This morning we walked and it was a great relief. She is now asleep by my feet.

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    1. There was no walk for Guinevere yesterday either. And of course none today either since I’m at the fair tomorrow should be nice enough to get out in the morning.

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  12. The house I grew up in had central air conditioning, but since I left home I’ve been coping with window units. My first studio apartment was fun, because not only was it was on the south side of a brick building, but it had a gas stove with a pilot light, so the A/C fought with the stove all summer and I sat in the dark with my insulating drapes closed…

    At the duplex we have two, one in the living room and one in my housemate’s room, which faces west and gets very, very hot late in the day (I’m on the east end, which stays cooler). Last summer the living-room unit died, and I was sensible enough to replace it this year. Good thing too, because we would not have survived the last couple days without it (and neither would the other A/C unit, most likely).

    I had taken today off to go to opening day of the Fair, but canceled it when I heard the forecast–we’ll wait for the weekend when it’ll be about ten degrees cooler, and just deal with the crowds.

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  13. Remember how the theaters would have a sign picturing icicles, etc., that said “Come in, it’s cool inside”… We saw the Barbie movie the other day (had already seen Oppenheimer) for a way to kill a couple of hours in The Cool.

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  14. Husband’s family didn’t have AC until he was about 17. His dad was really cheap and refused to spend the money, but Husband’s mom had heart problems and couldn’t tolerate heat, so his dad reluctantly had AC installed.

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  16. We don’t have AC. Because of our electric heat, we don’t even have duct-work in the house. And for the few days / year we’d need it, it’s pretty hard to justify the price. We have installed window AC units in the past a few times.
    Kelly doesn’t mind the heat; she admits, “it’s warm”, but she’s OK with it. When I told her she looked ‘moist’ the other day, she said she was ‘dewy’. 🙂
    I stayed at the college, in the AC, until 8:30PM yesterday.

    The basement is cooler, and in general, it’s a bit cooler in the country than in town although yesterday the thermometer read 101 degree’s at our house.

    My brother had a car with the AC added by the dealership. Eventually he pulled it out and it was up in the shed attic for years. I wonder if it’s still there?
    Having AC in the tractors is pretty nice…

    I always wonder how my folks survived, in this same house, with no ceiling fans and only one box fan? They opened both windows and would set the fan in the bedroom door to pull outside air in.
    I slept in the basement so it was better when I was a kid. There’s been a few nights that I had to move to the basement to sleep.

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  20. In Robbinsdale we had a window A/C upstairs, but used the box fans instead as Chris and Ben describe – to suck the cooler air in. After we added the Screen Porch, we sometimes slept on the futon out there, as previous generations did on their “sleeping porches”.

    I remember a passage about the heat in Louisiana in The Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood that made me want to never live in the South.

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  21. We of course had no ac when I was growing up or in our house on the North Shore. But our farmhouse was very hot from canning on a wood stove. But lots of open windows cooled it off for evening. If it did get up to 90 or so in our house on the Shore, we would go down to the cove we had access to where it would be in the 70’s. We would even build a fire and cook out. Have I made you jealous?

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  23. There is a 30% chance of rain in Atlanta tonight.
    XXXpresident Donny’s booking will prompt grown men to “have tears in their eyes.” This song may be of comfort to those poor souls.😮‍💨🙄

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  24. A delightful outspoken and free living older woman who lived in town had an unplumbed small cabin across Hwy61 that sat 35 feet above the lake. The man next door and I took care of the place including putting the stairs down to the cove in the spring and taking them up in the fall. We had free use of the cove. She came out most afternoons and made herself a meal. Our two families would often gather in her cabin with her in the evening. She was so funny and good with the 5 kids in the two families. That lasted until our kids left home. I did her funeral.

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  25. The cove was surrounded by rock walls, about 150 feet across and about the same deep, with large Lake Superior stones as a base, what the English call shingles. It was its own private world. You did not hear road noise. You could see the end of Silver Cliff above the Lake. Wisconsin was usually visible across the lake. We watch ore boats coming and going from Two Harbors. On stormy days you could not be in the cove because of high waves breaking over the shingles. Big storms would pull the shingles out and put them back. But small storms were fun when the waves would only break a few feet over the rocks. There was a gabbro rock shelf on one side to which we anchored the ladder.

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    2. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, that’s false.

      From the DHHS website:
      “FDA bases evaluations of substitutability or “therapeutic equivalence” for generic drugs on scientific evaluations. By law, generic drug products must contain the identical amounts of the same active drug ingredient as the brand name product. Drug products evaluated as “therapeutically equivalent” can be expected to have equal effect and no difference when substituted for the brand name product. FDA considers drug products to be substitutable if they meet the criteria of therapeutic equivalence, even though the generic drug may differ in certain other characteristics (e.g., shape, flavor, or preservatives).

      For more information on generic drugs (FAQs), please visit: http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/QuestionsAnswers/ucm100100.htm

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