Day 1498

HOT!!! Our Halo is taking it easy with short bursts of play and shorter sojourns outside. They seem to understand that today is not an outside day!

As I sit in the blissful air conditioning, I hear someone actually mowing their lawn! With heat indexes reaching 105 to 110 degrees, it’s hard to imagine choosing to do yard work. Then, I remember back to my childhood and realize how spoiled we have become.

When I was growing up, only one neighbor had air conditioning! Of course, when we couldn’t be sitting in front of their floor vents, we had to adapt to the heat. Upstairs, we always had one fan blowing out a window while another, at the opposite end of the Big White House, would blow in. It seemed to help! My mom would always take a cake pan full of ice cubes and place it in front of the incoming air. Even if it didn’t do too much, just the thought cooled our bodies.

Our neighborhood gang was pretty resilient, so a little heat never slowed us down. We would play outside until my mom would pile us into her little rambler (we could fit about nine to ten kids) and haul us to the Charles Horn Pool. Unheated, it was just what the doctor ordered! Of course, a trip to the Dairy Queen followed and heat was never even part of the conversation.

Technology has made so many advancements since those days in the 1950s and early '60s. I sometimes question whether the pure quality of happiness has followed suit. We were the happiest kids you could ever find and no computer was ever in sight! Perhaps “The Good Old Days” were simply that!