Verner Column: Summertime: The living wasn't easy

I went out after dark to add some papers to the recycling bin the other evening. It was thoroughly dark and quiet except for the hum of air conditioners, and there was no one else around. I thought how, in
the days before everyone had air conditioning, we all stayed outside well after dark. It was a way to beat the evening heat and give the house a chance to cool down. There were only three television
channels then, so why bother going inside? Very few people had air conditioning in their homes. The only place that was reliably air conditioned was the movie theater, and sometimes we would pay to go
to a movie just to get out of the heat. Most cars didn’t have air conditioning. I had a friend in elementary school whose family drove around in the summer with the windows of their car rolled up so
everyone would think they had air conditioning.

Cars did have those little triangular windows in the front part of the front windows that could be turned in so you had some circulation coming through them and the front vent. I think they were called vent
wings. Once the car got up to speed, the circulation of air made the temperature more tolerable. Nowadays, I don’t open my car windows for anything except the drive-up ATM.

The grownups talked to each other in the dark and we kids chased each other or caught fireflies in jars and tried to read comic books by their light. When we came into the house it seemed too close and
too bright. We turned the fans on and opened all the windows so that by bedtime the temperature seemed tolerable. I don’t know how we stood the humidity. I suppose we didn’t know any different.

It wasn’t all bad, though. On extremely hot nights, I put my head at the foot of my bed where the window was and enjoyed the breeze, usually listening on my AM radio to the Washington Senators lose
another game. Some people I’ve talked to had sleeping porches in the summer, and of course, houses were built for ventilation, with some older homes having 10-foot ceilings.

People went to great lengths to try to avoid the heat, even going to summer homes (if they could afford one) at the seashore or in the mountains. Railroads were built to accommodate summer travelers.
One architect believes that one of the greatest technological achievements of the twentieth century in this country was the air conditioning of interior spaces. Now we can go from our air conditioned (and
heated) homes to our air conditioned (and heated) cars to our air conditioned (and heated) offices, stores, restaurants and churches. Maybe we’ve lost something in doing so.

Everyone in our neighborhood had a vegetable garden which supplemented our meals all year, with canning and freezing. My parents knew how to raise fruits and vegetables and animals and how to
process and preserve them into food. The food I can fix comes in a plastic-wrapped package. I could probably figure out how to grow vegetables and raise animals for food, but I’d probably starve by the
time I did so.

I did spend plenty of time outside when I was younger. Our mother preferred that my brother and I stay outside as much as possible so we wouldn’t tear up the house. And so we rode our bikes, took
hikes, played baseball and climbed trees. I think I must have expended my outdoor quota because, really (and I feel un-American admitting this) I don’t like to be outside. There’s the heat, the cold, the
rain, the snow, the humidity, ticks, wild animals, falling meteors and satellites . . . the list goes on and on. I’d rather stay inside where it’s comfortable. I know, I’ll probably contract rickets or something
like it from lack of vitamin D, but I’ll take my chances. I had a biology class in college with a professor who was a world expert on parasites. Suffice it to say you don’t want to meet up with any of them,
and most of them live outside.

I wish all you outdoors people out there well. I’m glad there are people who enjoy biking and camping and hunting and fishing and rock climbing and white-water rafting and sailing and swimming and all
the rest. You can have my share of the outdoors. I’ll enjoy it vicariously on the computer and my Viewmaster. I also married someone whose idea of camping, as she says, is the Holiday Inn. No
argument there. Enjoy yourselves outside. I’ll be inside where it’s cool.

Dan Verner is a Manassas resident. He contributes his thoughts and stories to the Perspective page on Sundays.