Heritage Hints From Mama – Days Before Air Conditioning
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Today my mother, Janice Davis, shares her memories of the summer days before air conditioning! I sure enjoyed reading this and hope you will, too. Gratefully, Christy
Do you remember the days before air conditioning? We got our first air conditioner when I was five years old and we moved into our new home. I remember the noise that it made. Until we got used to it, the sound was deafening.
Before we moved into the new home, we lived in a small house in a close knit neighborhood. We had a box fan that was installed into a window in the living room. All of us kids would sing into the fan. It made singing a great pastime as it threw the words back out at us. It didn’t hurt that we also had the cooling breeze in our faces.
My grandmother had a small oscillating fan that sat on a table in her living room. We loved to put our finger on the center circle of the fan as it spun around. The grownups always fussed at us and told us that we were going to cut our fingers off and not to do it. I think the danger of it is what encouraged us to always give it a try. No one ever cut their finger off that I knew of though – but that isn’t to say that today’s fans couldn’t accomplish such a thing (in other words, don’t try this at home!).
We lived next door to my grandmother. I remember one day that my cousin and I wanted to play in my house. My grandmother kept us during the day and we weren’t allowed to go in house because my parents were at work. We decided that if we were sweating really bad that my grandmother would be worried that we were too hot and would allow us to go there to cool off (We had air conditioning but Mama Reed didn’t). We went to the hose and doused ourselves from head to toe with water. I’m sure my grandmother knew what we had done but she let us go next door to play. I can still remember us trying to decide how wet we should be in order to be convincing enough.
Thinking back about the hot days of summer, I didn’t really remember the heat so much as the memories of the summertime days. Playing with friends and family and enjoying the carefree days took over the memories of how hot Southern summers were. I hope that you have nice childhood summer memories also.
All of these are memories that our children will never know. I don’t remember thinking that it was so hot outside or anywhere else we went. There was no air conditioning in stores, churches or restaurants. Everyone was used to the heat and seemed to cope pretty well.
Kids would get up in the morning, eat breakfast and then head outside for a day of play. There was no reason to stay inside since the temperature inside was usually at least 10 degrees hotter than outside. We ran, played in the hose, built clubhouses, and caught honey bees in fruit jars. Heat sure didn’t slow us down any!
Now parents have to try to get their children to go outside and play. Children nowadays are used to being inside where the air conditioning keeps the house nice and cool but I can’t help but think they’re missing out on one of the best parts of a childhood.
Do you remember the days before air conditioning? Do you remember playing in the hose because it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk? Did you have a large box fan in your window?
I look forward to reminiscing with you in the comments below and remember, Mama loves you!
Love,
Mama
Life is too serious to be taken seriously.
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Christy, this is so interesting- I was born in 1985. My dad was in the military, so we moved a lot. When we moved to Texas when I was 6 years old, it was the first time we’d lived in a house with air conditioning. I don’t need to say that Texas summers are HOT. It was over 100 on a regular basis. But know what? My brother and I played outside for hours and hours every day in the summer in spite of the heat. Yes, we had air conditioning inside, but we were always outside. And I remember very rarely thinking it was too hot. If we had something to drink and something to occupy us, it was perfect 🙂 So I think kids now just need something fun to do and something to drink, and they’ll be fine outside! Oh and for the “something fun to do,” this was rarely anything thought up by my parents- it was us and our friends running around and having fun. The occasional set up of the slip and slide by my dad didn’t hurt things though!
Goodness, I remember hot summer nights with the windows open and if a breeze was blowing the sheers would float in the air. My aunt had the first air conditioner and I loved to put my face in front of it – soooo cool! My mother would open the front and back doors so a breeze would flow through the house assisted by window fans. We’d get up early while the morning was cool to cut grass and then in the middle of the day lay on the front porch floor because it was cool and take a nap. If no chores we’d ride our bikes all day long and get so dirty we’d have to scrub ourselves to get clean. Vacation Bible School was always a treat and it was always in the mornings. I learned to sew stitches, learn the books of the bible and at the end of a 3 hour day we’d have Koolaide and cookies. After we got home we’d make tuna or bologna or Spam (loved it back then) or banana sandwiches. Fortunately my daughter-in-law spends a lot of time outside with our two grandchildren and very little time in front of a tv. They love to pick produce out of their garden and catch bugs. When they visited us from NY I turned a movie on the tv to keep them still so we could get dressed to go some where. A commercial came on and my 5 yr old asked me to please turn the movie back on. She didn’t know what a commercial was on tv.
We didn’t have a/c until I was about 12 years old. I can remember many days running through the sprinkler and playing in the sweet summer rain . We would put our bathing suits on and run and slide in the rain like we were playing ball and sliding into home plate.All summer long we would be barefoot and I can remember walking on the hot asphalt and popping tar bubbles with our toes….boy my mom would get so mad! The only way to take the tar off was to rub a little gasoline on our feet….then it was back off to playing !Thanks for the memories !
So enjoyed remembering back to those days of no a/c. We ate breakfast and went outside, playing all day maybe stopping long enough for lunch. Then stayed outside till the street lights came on then inside for supper. Sometimes we went back out and played kick -the -can. (Do kids even know what that is anymore?) I remember tar bubbles, and riding bikes behind the mosquito truck. You know, we don’t let kids do that anymore!! My grandparents had a huge attic fan that ran 24/7 with windows raised. They didn’t get a/c till the 70’s and even then they didn’t like to use it. Thanks for bringing back sweet memories.
Yep, no a/c in our house either growing up. I remember lying on the floor in front of the fan, and singing and yelling into the fan, too!
I grew up in Central Florida and I truly don’t ever remember suffering from heat as a kid…We,too, had the jalousie windows – no fan that I can remember…I do remember staying outside from daylight to dark playing, riding our bikes, climbing trees. One thing I vividly remember – somehow I got some honey to play with…Played with some tea sets until I got tired of it and left everything just as I had finished playing with it…I remember my mom yelling like someone had died! Looked outside – one billion bees EVERYWHERE! I still think that is funny…I remember the fan being at the front of the class just mindlessly blowing hot air around…I remember the teacher lining everyone up – she had one big 6-12 stick and would rub our foreheads to get rid of the gnats at PE…Loved free time 🙂 What a childhood…
Once upon a Southern time I can barley remember these lovely old jalousie windows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalousie_window) usually in the kitchen & living room doors, patios & breezeways. Kind of ironic we never had screens because they were usually missing for some reason which made it interesting at night when the lights were on and the inquisitive bugs came to visit. I felt like I was one giant mosquito bite. Now my cousins in S. Carolina had this nice cool attic house fan which drew cool outside air into the house I mentioned that to my dad which irritated him as my dad was from NY (up North) and they did things differently. Seems they used 18-24″ round grey circular fans that was placed in the center of the rooms that was how they did it up north period, end of story & discussion. So we baked and baked until I finally got my mom to get us a few nice 28″ metal box fans that we placed on a card tables, floors anywhere near a window some were garbage and usually made more noise than wind (especially if you attached playing cards with cloths pins to them to muffle the noisy crickets, tree frogs, cat fights, barking dogs & strange creepy monster noises, thunder.) I will not mention the one that caught fire now that’s a whole new interesting story. Seems I was always in trouble for something like the time somebody took some of the playing cards for a few bikes. Seems my dad got mad when he lost & found out a few cards were missing from the deck whoops sorry. Now only thing worse than sweating at home was at school. See we didn’t have ac in any of the classrooms so we often sat in blistering 95 degree (egg baking temp) heat with the windows pitched wide open (no screens yup!) and nothing but one and several giant pole fans if your lucky in the back of the classroom that sounded like you were living at the jet port. You were assigned seat and if you were lucky you got one near the oscillating fan. The teacher would often shout to overcome the noisy fans so you never knew if you were in trouble. So if you sat near a window (no screens) it made you daydream, if in the front or middle of the class then you smelled everybody in the winds pathway (OMG what the heck is that smell dirty feet?) or if in the back of the class near the fans which was usually the kiss of death as the teacher constantly called on you or yelled at you because you falling asleep especially after lunch. Than your parents wonder why you never got A’s in school? Could it be because most of our brains have been fried like an egg from the lack of ac. Ironic when the school finally did get ac the principals office always got it first. Hello! :o)
I remember sitting in the auditorium the first day of school wearing a nylon slip under my dress and it sticking to my back with sweat. i had one teacher who brought an air conditioner from home and put it at the back of the room. I always hoped that I got that seat! We picked our teacher by the one that had a fan in their room! Mama