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In that case, our bodies would acclimate to the heat (and humidity if necessary).
So true.
I grew up in the south, and my parents put in an attic fan and while it helped, I remember thinking it wasn't making enough difference! Like others, we loved going to the movies to cool down.
Later I lived with and without A/C in NYC and Europe, and don't remember lack of A/C being much of a factor. Decades ago I moved to the Central Coast of CA, and we don't need A/C here, and I've adopted a new norm. Now, visiting hot climates in the summer is torture, A/C doesn't help the getting into boiling cars, walking on steaming pavement, being too wiped for outdoor activities, and having all windows open all summer for constant fresh air.
Some years ago I had a reunion with one of my best childhood friends who had moved to Brazil and has lived close to the equator for about 35 years. We got together on the East Coast in late May. I was already complaining of the heat and humidity, anxious to get back home, and she was complaining that the climate was so dry that her nasal passages were drying up and making her really uncomfortable.
I think that's the moment I scratched visiting her off my bucket list!
I was born in 1942 outside Chicago in the burbs. We had a two story house and at night, occasionally, it was extremely hard to sleep so my mom and dad pulled the mattresses down the stairs to the first floor. They left all the windows and all the doors open, including the front door. My father got to sleep on the cot in the screened in porch because he had to go to work, but Mom and I didn't so we got the floor. It usually cooled off in the early AM so we could sleep.
I recall we took a trip in summer to LA, across the desert in 1950 maybe. We had to stop and buy a window air cooler that hooked up to the passenger's side window. You filled it with water and it was supposed to blow and keep you cool. It wasn't helpful. We also had a water bag hanging on the front of the car for ???
We had one of those 'coolers' too and, you're right...they didn't work very well. Maybe as a placebo? The water bag was a fixture too, for overheated radiators. That happened fairly often with those old cars and all the up and down mountains my parents drove just getting to places like Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott, etc.. Lots of mountain grades. Easy today but not so much back then. There's still one stretch heading north between here and Phoenix where they say to turn off your car's AC "just in case".
I grew up in Los Angeles and never had A/C anywhere we lived. Mom used to drive a carload of us kids to the beach at night after dinner. We would play in the water or lie on the beach until late at night. On the way home we stopped for ice cream.
For dinners we would get take out pizza or chicken. Sometimes cold cuts at a deli and A & W root beer.
We all had fans in our bedrooms.
I lived in So Cal from age 11 to 17 and I don't remember having any kind of cooling back then either. We did spend a lot of time outdoors and stayed out pretty late. We may have had fans but I don't remember any, if we did. My dad always worked the 3-11 PM shifts so we never got to go anywhere in the evenings.
I loved window fans. Even if they didn't do much to cool me off, the sound lulled me to sleep. We had two window AC units in our house in NJ. One was in the dining room, and kept that room as well as the living room pretty comfortable. The other was in my parents' bedroom. My siblings and I would sleep outside on lawn chaises sometimes, but I don't ever remember any of us sleeping on the porch. I wonder why we didn't. We did have a pool, and played outside all day long.
Now, living in the south, the AC is on for half the year. I still open a window before I go to sleep. I need fresh air, even in winter.
I still use a fan at night in the bedroom. Also the ceiling fan. I don't run my AC all night and only a few hours during the day. As many as 7 hours on my days off but mostly because I'm painting and doing 'stuff' around the house and I don't like to sweat! When I got my light bill the other day I was sure glad I don't! It was twice what my June bill was.
I spent some time in dessert ;it got flat cold at night but by days it felt like a oven and I was baking in summer. Ten there was the dust especially on windy days.
I was born in 1942 outside Chicago in the burbs. We had a two story house and at night, occasionally, it was extremely hard to sleep so my mom and dad pulled the mattresses down the stairs to the first floor. They left all the windows and all the doors open, including the front door. My father got to sleep on the cot in the screened in porch because he had to go to work, but Mom and I didn't so we got the floor. It usually cooled off in the early AM so we could sleep.
I recall we took a trip in summer to LA, across the desert in 1950 maybe. We had to stop and buy a window air cooler that hooked up to the passenger's side window. You filled it with water and it was supposed to blow and keep you cool. It wasn't helpful. We also had a water bag hanging on the front of the car for ???
We had one of those useless car window coolers too one year. As I remember, the bags of water were to put in the radiator if the car overheated, which those old cars did regularly on trips through the desert or mountains. The Good Old Days!!
I remember 1963 in Biloxi, Mississippi. The high school had AC in the school auditorium. Classrooms all had a single floor fan and open windows. The cafeteria was pure hell in early fall and late spring.
At home we had an attic fan. At night my father would close all the windows in the house but crack the ones in his and Mom's bedroom and in the bedroom where I slept about two inches, then turn the fan on high. I can remember waking up in July freezing my gonads off!! The moist air coming in off the Gulf could really make it cool.
These days we've become a lot of softies unable to stand any kind of hot or cold air.
Then again, life expectancy wasn't nearly as high!
Growing up in the mid-60s/late-70s in what was to become Silicon Valley, we had no A/C or even fans in the house. My father never offered fans; the idea certainly never occurred to me! We blocked the sun with drapes and blinds. Many nights we slept in the back yard. Obviously, as children we wore as little as possible. Maybe a swimsuit with a short cotton dress on top.
The library and the movie theater in town were air-conditioned, as were both of the ice-cream shops. So we could visit those places during business hours to catch a break from the heat.
Otherwise, we swam in the public pool(s), rode our bikes around to catch a breeze, and drove over the Santa Cruz mountains to the beach for swimming and bodysurfing. The ocean was always nice and cool. No A/C in the car, and many times it would boil over as we climbed to the Summit. There were water spigots placed near the Summit on Highway 17, and we'll pull over and fill up the radiator and wait for the engine to cool down.
We also had big oscillating sprinklers attached to hoses in our yard, and later on a Slip and Slide.
Living without A/C was normal in that place and time. Today, living in Seattle, most people don't have A/C. But it's been quite hot here at times this summer, and those high temperatures without A/C in the house remind me of growing up without it in CA.
In the 50's in Ohio I didn't know whether to play outside or inside, both were hot.
There was a basement but it was an old house, we didn't play much down there, it
wasn't like today's basements, more a storage area. When we went to visit relatives
in the south, it was even more hot and humid...Yes, I do appreciate air conditioning..
I'm in Colorado now, it gets hot but luckily not humid.
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