Mad Dogs and Englishmen

My gods

"When it gets too hot, we lightly spray water on our arms, legs and faces" @nytimes pic.twitter.com/Y9Qb0qyZ53

— James Pethokoukis ⏩️⤴️ (@JimPethokoukis) September 2, 2024

Yesterday morning the temperature when I got up was 84F and the humidity was 95%.  That's considered "mild" for this time of year down here.

So sure, open the windows and in the afternoon, spray yourself with water.  Nothing like being even more humid than the ambient air (the humidity fell during the day to about 85%.  It rained a bit around noon, which didn't nothing to relieve the humidity, or the temperature, which went into the low '90's, at all.

My high school (in the '70's) was built in the '50's, using sheet glass, which must have been the cheap building material of the day.  Every classroom had two walls of glass (same for the elementary school I attended).  Not only could you not heat it in winter (it had air ducts for the furnace, but the walls transmitted all the outside temperature in, and all the heat out), there was no air-conditioning.  I still remember my forearm sticking to notebook paper as I tried to write in fall (it didn't cool down until November) and spring (usually coming in in late February).  Pencil would smear, ballpoint ink would not.  But the paper would wrinkle and barely dry out.  Fans would move the hot air about, and make so much noise the teacher had to shout to be heard.

Good times, good times.  And the climate was cooler then.  No, seriously.  We regularly got snow in December through February.  By the time I was in high school, snow was a thing of the dim past.  Nowadays?  Fuggedaboutit!

Those two schools have since been replaced with brick structures with air conditioning.  The schools I attended were sprawling one story buildings with flat roofs, units designed with covered (or uncovered) walking space between them for air to circulate.  It didn't.  It was like going to school in a greenhouse, with a design specially made to block and deaden the wind.

Maybe you can do without air conditioning in Chicago (many places of business were not air conditioned when I lived there), or NYC.  But south of the Mason-Dixon?  Mad dogs and Englishman, bub....