The
Old Coot Knows How to Beat the Heat!
By
Merlin Lessler
We’ve
“endured” a long stretch of hot weather lately, mostly in the 80’s. Whenever there’s
a hot spell, a flock of “experts” swarm to the media to offer advice on keeping
cool. The cat and dog people step in with their advice too. Us old coots get a
chuckle every time the weather advisors take the stage. Our society can’t deal
with the environment anymore. We’ve been spoiled by air conditioning. It’s
everywhere: in our cars, our homes and the places where we shop, dine and work.
We’ve lost the ability to cope with summer. When we were kids (in the good old
days) we got a drink from a hose, not from a bottle of chilled water from
France. Our parents warned us when we did, “Be careful. Don’t blow your brains
out!” Of course, it never worked. We’d put the hose in our mouth and trusted
that our friends would turn it on gradually. Instead, they cranked it up to full
blast. It’s why my generation is so dumb. We blew our brains out getting a
drink from a hose.
It
was a lot harder keeping cool in those days. People didn’t have air
conditioning in their houses or pools in their back yards, except for those
metal framed, canvas, kiddy ones that were one-foot deep. We didn’t care that
our legs hung over the side; we’d lie down in the tepid water and pretend we
were swimming at the lake. It wasn’t too exciting, but it cooled us off. It
didn’t take much to entertain a bunch of kids who had blown their brains out
with a hose. We’d also spend hours running around under the sprinkler or taking
turns soaking each other with a hose, a pail of water or squirt guns, the kind
that had to be refilled after about ten squirts. We would have killed for one
of the half-gallon soakers that today’s kids have at their disposal.
You
had to learn to sleep “hot” in those days. Sleeping “hot” was an art. You had
to fluff up the sheet just right, so it didn’t cling to your skin and turn your
pillow over every half hour to get to the cool side. You never fell into a deep
sleep on a hot night back then. You just made the best of it.
We
may not have had air conditioning when I was a kid, but we had something
better, Kool-Aid. Nothing was quite as satisfying as a glass of frosty Kool-Aid
on a dog day afternoon. Especially the way we made it, with a full cup of
sugar, two if mom wasn’t watching. Some lucky folks had a second-floor back porch.
It was a perfect place to slumber on a narrow cot or a hired man’s bed on a hot
night. People bragged if they had a sleeping porch, not unlike they do today if
they have central air. We didn’t need “experts” to tell us how to cope with the
weather. Ours was a self-reliant society. We didn’t complain about it. It was
what we waited for all winter. It’s why you see us old coots outdoors when the
temperature heats up. We enjoy it, those of us who aren’t intimidated by the
media alarmists. Of course, we don’t know any better; we blew our brains out
drinking from a hose when we were kids!
Comments?
Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com
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