For The Love of AC

 

Words and photo by F LoBuono

We just weathered the first heatwave of the season, i.e., 3 or more consecutive days of temperatures above 90 degrees. At least one of them was record setting with all of them reaching heat indexes near or above 105 degrees. In other words, it was hot – damned hot.

I tend to enjoy hot weather. It suits my dark complexion and Sicilian ancestry. So, I adapt easily to the extremes of heat. But it can get too intense (like it did in those days) even for me. That’s when you must use common sense and take the necessary precautions to avoid the potentially devastating effects that kind of intense temperature can cause. These include drinking plenty of water, limiting time outside especially in the sun, wearing sunscreen when you must be out, and spending time cooling off in an air-conditioned room.

Like most people of my generation, I remember a time when air-conditioning was a luxury, not the absolute omnipresent necessity it is today. Schools were not air conditioned. Nor libraries. Nor cars. It was considered such a luxury that when a place DID have AC it was one of the first things mentioned in their advertising. I certainly remember going to the movie theater to see movies that I didn’t necessarily even like just to spend a blisteringly hot summer afternoon in THEIR air conditioning!

One of the reasons for that is because we only had one air-conditioner in our house – the whole house. It was this gigantic unit that every year my father and I hauled out of the garage in the Spring to install in my parent’s window and returned it the same way in the Fall. The reason it wound up in my parents’ window was twofold: first, it WAS their house. And, secondly, my father suffered with extreme asthma. Hot, humid nights could prove deadly to him. So, it was more than a luxury. It was an absolute necessity. But we could only afford to actually buy and run one. Still, being the tight-knit family we were, we came up with the perfect solution: my older sister, younger brother and I pulled the mattresses and blankets off our beds and piled them all around our parents’ where we all slept blissfully and, most importantly, cooly, through the night.

As a kid I clearly remember taking trips down the Westside Highway into NYC with my parents and passing all of the tenement buildings with people sleeping on balconies and roof tops in a desperate attempt to beat the heat. The great majority of them had no sign of any air conditioning anywhere. My mother always remarked with empathy, saying “those poor people” even though we were not that much better off.

You know, I never forgot that. Even today as I sit in the AIR  CONDITIONED office in my house with its Central Air-Conditioning unit that pumps cool air day and night around the entire place, I take a moment to reminisce about that time when life may have been simpler but certainly was not without its challenges. And I think about all of the people who are less fortunate than me and may be struggling in front of a fan or with no means to cool off at all.

I feel like it’s important to acknowledge that we live in extraordinary times where, for most of us, the essentials of life are available to us at our very fingertips. Flip a switch and there is light. Turn on your computer and a world of information awaits. Move a lever and clean water (hot and cold) is instantly there. I think that’s the REAL meaning of privilege. Sure, some see it in its extreme sense, i.e. wealth and power. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Most of us have the means to live lives of relative comfort and stability - most, but not all.

So, don’t take simple things for granted. Instead use them as a catalyst to create empathy for those who may lack even the things we consider the most basic for human comfort and dignity. Like a good night’s sleep in a clean, air-conditioned room.