AC doozie

It’s not that I was eavesdropping, necessarily, but when two people are having a loud conversation a mere 10 feet from where you’re sitting, it’s hard not to notice what they’re saying. The dialogue was between two men, and went something like this:

 

“Boy, it sure is a scorcher today, isn’t it? It’s almost too hot. It’s not comfortable.”

 

“Yeah, but I’ll take this over cold and snowy any day.”

 

Of course he would. He’s not insane.

 

As New Englanders, most of us have repeatedly expressed some version of that sentiment; it resurfaces every year, when we have to remind ourselves that humidity and stuffiness are still preferable to not feeling our feet. Without giving it too much thought, it would be easy to assume that people living in the South and Southwest have it easy, what with year-round pool parties and Thanksgivings in shorts. Kinda makes you want to track down a Floridian and punch them for sheer chuckles. Or that could just be me.

 

There’s a rub, though. The easy comfort of southern locales is a relatively new phenomenon, brought about by a technology that’s quietly changed the course of history.

 

Air conditioning.

 

We tend not to think of AC as being a history-changer; most of the historical events that become calcified in our collective memories are brought about by great violence, great triumph, or great singing performances in front of a panel of TV judges. When we flip on the AC to beat back the most oppressive of summer heat, we’re usually not saying to ourselves, “Wow! A hundred years ago my only recourse in sticky weather was to strip to my skivvies and jump in the ocean!” We also don’t think of ourselves as wearing “skivvies” anymore. That may have something to do with it.

 

Yet consider modern life without air conditioning. It would be a drastically different world. There’d be no indoor malls in Texas. Office buildings would be infested with oscillating fans. You’d either see be a lot more convertibles driving around, or a lot more sweaty forearms dangling from open car windows. And really, there’d just be a lot more nakedness all the way around, which sounds great until you realize one of those naked people would be Larry King. Thank you, AC, for keeping Larry King in suspenders.

 

According to the History Channel documentary series “How the States Got Their Shapes” – yes, I’m citing a TV show – nine of the 10 most populous American cities at the turn of the 20th Century were located in the North, with Los Angeles the only western locale to make the cut. Currently, only three of those northern cities – New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia – remain in the top 10. All of the others are in the South or Southwest, with three in Texas (Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston), three in California (LA, San Diego, and San Jose), and one in Arizona (Phoenix). This massive population shift was made possible by air conditioning. You don’t get people to relocate to your burg when the air at the post office is as thick as chicken noodle soup.

 

History plays out differently if this migration doesn’t occur. If, for example, Dallas never becomes a major metropolitan area, then an American President named John F. Kennedy may decide it’s not worth making a swing there in November of 1963. That means no motorcade through Dealey Plaza, no Lee Harvey Oswald perched inside a book depository, and possibly no successful assassination attempt. Which means Lyndon Johnson may never become president. Which means the civil rights movement of the ’60s may play out differently. And so on down the line, until the country wakes up one morning in 2015 to the announcement that President Engelbert Humperdinck has declared No Pants Day a national holiday. Because air conditioning was never invented, we’re all at work in our underwear. Which is probably just as well, since it’s so damn hot.

 

During the country’s infancy, stuffy climes were double trouble. Have you ever seen the way our founding fathers dressed? It could have been the height of a sweltering summer, and they’d still be decked out in thick vests, long-sleeved jackets and flared-put pantaloons with roughly the heft of an aircraft carrier. Whether due to popular style or a cultural dedication to modesty, you never saw John Adams dressed in, say, cargo shorts and an undershirt. The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia – which took place during a hot spell, apparently – might not have been taken so seriously if Washington and Franklin had showed up in bathing suits and flip-flops. With AC, their overdressed, buttoned-down styles wouldn’t have been an issue; just crank it up, Jefferson, and pass the lemonade. As it was, their sequestered meetings may well have taken place in a Saint Bernard’s crotch, for all the relief they got. One wonders if they forgot to include a Bill of Rights on the first pass because they were eager to adjourn and take an Atlantic dunk in full-on birthday-suit mode.

 

For one reason or another, AC never got its due. It heralded a revolution in the way we live, but the only time we really acknowledge it is when we grouse about lugging out our heavy window units, or complain when it’s on the fritz. Yet everything would be different without it. Las Vegas would be a tiny, forgettable desert settlement. Florida would be a sparsely populated swamp. There’d be no such thing as summer blockbusters; movie houses would be ghost towns in July and August, its patrons toting coolers to the beach and stuffing ice cubes in their bikini tops.

 

It’s been a cool one so far, but that’ll change. Nights will be sticky. When that happens, and it’s time to crank the ol’ cold-box, I plan on taking a moment to be thankful that we’ve come to this point, having acquired mastery over the spit-thick air of another soupy summer.

 

Anyone been south of the Mason-Dixon line lately? I hear it’s lovely indoors this time of year.