Meditations on trials of modern air conditioning

I hate air con­di­tion­ing, insti­tu­tional AC that is, not car or even one’s home where it can be reg­u­lated. I think AC turns us inward, con­tent in an arti­fi­cial world of self-indulgence. I think only of myself and suf­fer when a man­ager at a restau­rant or a gro­cery store or a pro­fes­sor in a col­lege class­room says, “We can­not change the tem­per­a­ture; it orig­i­nates some­where else.” That some­where else is usu­ally hid­den in a con­trol panel in a sub­ter­ranean room where only the jailer has the key. If ever I have felt a pris­oner, it is being com­pelled to sit in an expen­sive restau­rant next to a vent hurl­ing cold air onto my neck and back. I have been reduced to wrap­ping not only a slight sweater around my shoul­ders but also sev­eral nap­kins. In a fit of despair I once had a waiter put a serv­ing tray on top of a reg­is­ter that blew cold air onto my legs and up my skirt. Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe should have such trou­bles. Try price com­par­i­son while shak­ing from sub­zero ambi­ent AC at your local food chain. I now take a win­ter jacket along with my purse and sacks, an extra bur­den when out­side it is a fine 85 while inside a ter­ri­fy­ing 65. I am furi­ous at being a vic­tim of such com­mer­cial uni­ver­sal­ism, not to men­tion my own indi­vid­ual sur­ren­der to out-of-control “con­trol panels.”

Grow­ing up mostly with­out AC, I remem­ber sum­mers where we did our own reg­u­lat­ing. We had screened-in porches or front stoops to sit on. Lots can hap­pen on those stoops. Par­ents mon­i­tored kids run­ning through lawn sprin­klers or play­ing in an opened fire hydrant. They gos­siped and fanned and for­got the oppres­sive heat. If one didn’t have a porch, my hus­band recalled how peo­ple brought sleep­ing gear to the green spaces in down­town Cincin­nati dur­ing the sear­ing sum­mer heat of the mid­dle ’30s. Peo­ple under adver­sity assem­bled, con­nected and shared their mis­ery, some­how mit­i­gat­ing its impact.

Attend­ing church before AC, I sat behind John Gal­breath, the then rich­est man in Colum­bus, owner of Darby Dan Farms and the Pitts­burgh Pirates. He han­dled a pew fan as well as the rest of us.

In the coun­try it got hot, too. A cold glass of hand-squeezed lemon­ade brought to the hay field altered, if not the atmos­phere, an atti­tude. Or hand-cranked ice cream set in motion before a Sun­day meal and left to “ripen” for an after­noon treat went a long way toward agree­able com­pany. The sweet, soft, cold iced cream floated down the throat and let us for a short while for­get about weather and enjoy our fam­ily and friends.

Sylvia Zim­mer­man is the owner of Ful­ton Creek Jer­sey Cheese in Rich­wood. She holds two grad­u­ate degrees and, when not work­ing on her farm or pur­su­ing her inter­est in sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, writes her own blog.

Posted by Sylvia Zimmerman on Jun 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.