Dog Days

I don't believe any of the houses I grew up in had air conditioning.  A few of the apartment's I lived in during and after college had it, but I wasn't in those long enough for that to become the norm.
Admittedly, in Michigan where I grew up there are more cool nights than there is in a place like Tillman's Corner, Alabama, but summer's heat could still be oppressive with its evil friend humidity.  My parents always said the best thing to do was to put a fan in the window at night, either blowing cool air in, or warm air out overnight.  I always wanted the thing directly cooling me off.

We're in the midst of the dog days of summer.
dictionary.com defines the Dog Days as:
"The sultry part of the summer, supposed to occur during the period that Sirius, the Dog Star, rises at the same time as the sun: now often reckoned from July 3 to August 11."  Sultry...  Reckoned...
I've always been partial to the definition from the William Armstrong's Sounder, even if it is incorrect:
"the heat is so bad the dogs go mad"
I'm not sure if she's mad, but my dog clearly lets me know when the walk gets too long during the dog days.  She knows where the shady spots are along the road and what to do when she gets there.

This past week has had a brutal combination of heat and humidity.  Lows overnight were around 70.  And while highs were only around 90, humidity was almost tropical in nature with dew points above 70 degrees at time.  The hot and humid days can be ugly, but the nights can be near hateful - I'm reminded of the first few years after moving to Southern Ohio.  If my memory is correct, I moved into my house in February, with the huge opposing furnace heating and drying the air.  As that first winter transitioned to spring to summer, the area showed what we were in for.  The dog days of summer were unpleasant.  Getting home after work to a house that never felt like it dried out.  My parent's counsel to use fans in the windows was augmented by fans blowing over the bed.  The house sat in a holler, so humidity would often pool in the slightly cooler, lower air.  The effect was cooler soupy air was pushed around overnight only to be turned into hot soupy air during the day.  Overnight thunderstorms would bring a separate set of problems.
I tried to remain stoic about it, "I've never had air conditioning."
"Well, how was sleeping last night?" Janet asks, smugly.
I didn't admit it, but it was miserable.  At that time, I probably could have afforded a window air conditioner, but it would have been a stretch.  And I wasn't sure how much additional cost would come with actually using it.

Eventually, Bill gave me his old air conditioner as he got his central system fixed as preparation for selling his house.  This was an enormous window unit - thankfully the house had large windows.  It was loud and shaky and it seemed to want to give up overnight, but the slightly cooler and drier air it created in the evening allowed sleep to come less fitfully on most nights.  For some reason, paper wasps loved to make nests in that window air conditioner.
That free unit was eventually replaced with a far more efficient window air conditioner upstairs and a second larger unit downstairs.  I've always hated window air conditioners though.  No matter how well they are secured, much of the construction of modern units is plastic and they seem a desperately weak security risk.  In my case, the risk was probably minimal for the second floor, but despite doing what I could to secure it, the ground floor always made me nervous.  And since getting really good sealing around a window air conditioner isn't easy, I always assumed it was a convenient entry point for bugs as well as burglars.
At some point, discomfort and anxiety made getting central air conditioning a better solution.  Quite frankly, it didn't cost all that much and by getting a heat pump it helped with winter bills as well.  But as the house was well over 100 years old, with several retrofits from what was likely the original fireplace and coal furnace heating system, all cold air returns (that did anything) were on the first floor.  Some cooling reached the second story helped by a fan at the top of the stairs.  But a window unit was still needed upstairs might have been helpful on the worst days.  I didn't know it at the time, but I was only able to enjoy the central air conditioning for a couple years until I ended up moving.

I'd like to believe I'm not soft, but I'm quite sure returning to a lack of air conditioning would be painful.  Childhood tolerance is long gone.  Still, not only have I lived for most of my life without air conditioning, but people have for millennia.  If there was a drastic change in circumstances, I could try to resurrect the stoic tolerance of my ancestry.
As Mark Chesnutt sang in  1990:
"These old dog days of summer
Lord, I'll be glad when they're gone..."