July 6, 1999
Tuesday

In a journal it is important in a few words to describe the weather, or character of the day, as it affects our feelings. That which was so important at the time cannot be unimportant to remember.
                                                         – Henry David Thoreau, 1855

In a few words – hazy, hot, and humid. Most of the United States is having a hot spell – here in central Pennsylvania we had record-setting 100+ degree weather yesterday. The moisture hangs in the air so that everything is viewed as if through a smeared glass. In the morning I walk through the stale air of the kitchen into the garage, and as the door lifts the muggy outside air, already heavy at just past six, rolls in to envelope me.

Our house is air-conditioned, but the unit that controls the downstairs is in its last hours. Due for replacement next week, it might have served adequately had temperatures stayed in the mid to high eighties. As it is, “the little compressor that can’t” labors mightily to keep things at a stuffy 85.

I’m in favor of turning the thing off and opening the windows. After all, I lived here for ten years without artificial cooling. Central air was a $1500 luxury when this house was built, and only about half the original young-married homeowners opted for it. As our affluence levels rose, however, more and more of us gave up the hideous and inefficient window units and had our places retro-fitted with independent upstairs and downstairs systems that do the job better than what was state-of-the-art in 1976.

My family, however, has vetoed my desire to return to the more primitive ways. Opening the windows will allow the humidity to saturate the house, I’m told, and after all, (joining the weatherman’s litany), it’s not the heat, (bow your head) it’s the humidity.

I grew up without air-conditioning. I still remember signs on stores and movie theaters from the early 1950″s — “Come on in, it’s KOOL inside.” Our school buildings could become oven-like in early September and late May, but it did no good to complain to our teachers, Catholic sisters clad in long-sleeved gowns and veils of black serge. They told us to offer it up for the sins of the world.

The summer I turned nine my father had a summer job working the night shift at a railway dispatch office. We got a Fedders window unit for my parents’ bedroom that allowed him to sleep during the day in comfortable air while the hum of the motor drowned out the noise of children at play. When I was in high school my mother worked in a state office building whose antiquated wiring could not accommodate all window units at once. Thus certain departments had air conditioning in the morning, others in the afternoon.

The current heat wave has produced in me more a psychological discomfort than a physical one. I feel enervated, unable to begin even quiet projects that require little physical exertion. My thought processes are fuzzy, my mood brittle.

And that’s the best I can do today.