This summer is quieter than any summer I can remember for a long time. I think it is a combination of having moved, and not being that embedded in our new community, as well as the fact that the virus has kept us all at home more.
Sitting on my back deck in the evening with the traffic a mere murmur and the birds circling and singing above I am reminded of the sleeping porch, a relic from my past. When the hot summer nights hit in the days before air conditioning, my bed would be moved out to a screened porch to escape from the heat that had built up in the house during the day. I would lie in the dimming twilight with the soft evening breeze blowing over my pajama clad body, and listen to the crickets humming until I fell asleep. During storms, unless very severe, I would be allowed to stay on the porch as the rain pattered down around me bringing the welcome cooling air. Sometimes heat lightening would pierce the sky, and the porch would be thrown into strange relief for a moment before the dark would surround me again. I loved those summer nights on the porch, and was always sad to see my bed returned inside in the fall.
While our homes were not air conditioned, stores were beginning to have that amazing capacity. Big signs would be posted in the window of the local drug store or grocery store “We are cool inside,” the letters made to look like frosted ice. Walking into the cool air from the heat of the day seemed like a miracle, but it made returning to the sun drenched outdoors all the more difficult. Of course there was no air conditioning in cars, so all the windows would be down with the hot breeze disturbing coiffed hair and ruffling light cotton dresses. No matter how carefully one dressed, one always arrived at one’s destination a little windblown and sweaty.
In addition to homes and cars, schools were not air conditioned either. I remember returning to school in the fall after Labor Day, windows in the classrooms open to catch any breeze. Papers would stick to damp arms resting on desks, and ink would run with the sweat dripping from foreheads. It was hard to concentrate, and both students and teachers were glad when the returning fall finally brought back the cooler weather.
Air conditioning is now an established fact of life, and a very welcome one as far as I am concerned. It is sometimes just good to remember to be grateful for some of the things we now take for granted.