Summer Daze Now and Then

Summer Daze – Now and Then

I circle the parking lot at the Memorial City mall and pass up a spot close to the entrance, my eyes scanning to see if I can find a tree. I see one poking up about five rows back. Zigzagging my way through the sea of cars, I get there and find three other motorists waiting for a woman with six packages, a crying infant in a stroller, and a hot, sweaty toddler to vacate this one spot of shade. One of the drivers is honking impatiently at her. She gives him the finger and I don’t blame her. I project as much coolness as I can toward her, knowing it would be some time before she has the children strapped into their car seats and the packages deposited in the hatchback of her SUV. Only then will she jump into the driver’s seat, turn on the ignition, push the air conditioning up to max, and head out from that one shady spot.

Sighing, I head back to the spot closer to the entrance, zip in quickly, cover my front windshield with a silver reflector, open each front windows one half inch, check my list to estimate how long my shopping will take, inhale a one last deep breath of air conditioning, stop the engine, grab the sweater I keep in the car and make a run for the entrance. Ahh, August in Houston.

Summer in the Deep South has come to mean hopscotching from an air conditioned car to an air conditioned building and back to the car as quickly as possible. Navigating this environment requires forethought and on-the-spot problem solving.

A.   First scan for a tree to park under

B.    If there is no tree in sight move to step C

C.     Park as close to the door as possible

D.   Fortify your vehicle against the onslaught of heat with reflectors and ventilation

E.    Estimate how long it will take to run your errands and plan the route accordingly

F.      Remember to take a sweater with you if you plan on being indoors any length of time (air conditioning is set at frigid most places)

G.    Now you are ready to venture out on a typical day in August.

If it weren’t for air conditioning many businesses would never consider locating in places like Houston or New Orleans. But with the advent of this blessed climate regulator, Houston became a viable place to do commerce. Over time people developed a number of ways to avoid being outdoors in the summer heat. One accommodation being air conditioned tunnels and skywalks connecting many of the downtown skyscrapers. If you happen to be traversing a street at ground level in downtown now, the city seems eerily empty.  

Where are all the people? They are all travelling briskly back and forth using the aforementioned tunnels or skywalks, like life-size ants in a huge plastic ant farm. Where are their cars? Their cars are in corralled in multi-level parking garages attached to the skyscrapers, shaded so the heat inside is kept to a simmer instead of the full boil of parking on a street in the sun. This way most people never actually come in contact with the sweltering, smelly city that is Houston in August.

In our homes, we have double-paned UV protected windows, and weather sealing around doors to keep the cool air in. We only open our doors briefly to get to our car which, if we are lucky, is in an attached garage. Our windows are never opened. The temperature is a constant seventy to seventy-five degrees depending on how much our electricity bill was last month.

If you happen to need to drive in your air conditioned auto around downtown, your eyes will gaze at a multitude of water features in front of buildings and plazas giving the illusion of coolness. But woe to anyone who is forced to actually get out of their car and park in a street level parking lot. This experience can leave lasting scars both physical and mental.

           I was once called for jury duty downtown and had to park on a ground-level, shade less asphalt parking lot.  When I came out three hours later, I became acutely aware of the fact that asphalt has a liquid state. My new, strappy summer sandals sank in the dark sticky goo and were ruined. The car was so hot I could feel the blisters forming on my fingers as I gingerly touched the steering wheel and to add insult to injury, I wasn’t even picked for a jury!

So going to the mall or performing my civic duty in August are both difficult. Most days I hibernate in my climate controlled home until after sundown. The thing is I have lived in the Deep South most of my life. I grew up in a small town, Gretna, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans in the days before universal air conditioning. How had I survived summers back then?

Well, first of all every home, church or business had fans; ceiling fans, large box fans in windows or attics, small, obsoleting fans on counters, and even paper fans with holy pictures in church. I attended St. Anthony’s church in Gretna as a child. A small white clapboard church raised about three feet off the ground on cement blocks, inside the floor and pews were wood and the stained glass windows actually could be tilted open in summer, the ceiling was high, and paper fans were available in the vestibule for anyone who had not brought their own. All of this was planned with one physics principle in mind, hot air rises. So making sure the hot air of summer had a chance to rise above the area where people congregated was vital.

Still, sometimes young girls or women would faint during a particularly sultry summer morning mass. Going to church on a summer Sunday morning, having fasted since the night before so they could receive communion, they would drop like flies. When I was 8 or 9, I have a vivid memory of leaning on the pew in front of me and willing myself to faint. I was not the kind of kid who would fake-it so instead I would pray, God please make me faint so I can be carried out of here. I would wait and wait to be delivered from my misery. But God never answered this particular prayer.

I attended church with Granny every Sunday without fail. Granny did not drive so she and I often walked to church and back carrying our own personal parasol for shade.  if we were lucky enough, a neighbor would honk their horn and invite us to ride inside their airconditioner-less car. I’d sit in the back seat with the window wide-open catching a breeze.  

Once we got home from church, Granny would plug in the large window fan in the kitchen and open all the doors and windows. Our house was typical for the area and the times, a shotgun with a door in the front and one in the back. Both had screen doors which would keep insects out but let air in. The windows were also screened, easily opened and had Venetian blinds instead of curtains that could be raised so there was nothing to obstruct the breeze.  In the summer, all the doors and windows would be open and that enormous fan sucked the air in the front and out the back. There was a constant breeze. When the sun went down, we would sit outside on the screen porch and sway back and forth pushing the wooden swing, listening to the rhythm of the metal chains against the hooks holding it to the ceiling.

What about places away from home, you might ask? Well, the schools I attended were also not air conditioned. But they were built above the ground with high ceilings equipped with fans and transoms over each door to circulate the air. The windows were all functional and could be opened. So, again, there was always a breeze passing through.

Although, the most important reason we did not suffer from the heat was probably because life ran at a different pace in the summer. All the cooking was done early in the morning as was most business and shopping. Mid-afternoons were reserved for naps or at the very least down time. Then after the sun went down in the evenings, people would come out to visit or eat a light dinner. People literally matched their work to the weather conditions.

           In the fall, winter, and spring the pace could change but summer had its own rhythm. I have some favorite memories of summer as a child. Granny adding cream of tartar to homemade root beer to “thin our blood” early in May, the smell of the night jasmine, actually a gardenia bush, under the open window on a summer night, turning my pillow over to the cool side in the middle of the night, being allowed to put on a bathing suit to play in a sudden summer shower, going to the NORD, New Orleans Recreation Department, community pool with my cousins and, of course, enjoying snowballs.

               This delicious way to cool yourself has its own New Orleans style. This icy treat must not have any ice crystals only pure white “snow”. This special powdery cool goodness is made using a machine called- I kid you not- the Snow Flake Maker. The toppings need to be intense in color and sugar content to please the eye and the palate. Then we name each flavor something catchy or funny to keep everybody laughing. Names like Tiger’s Blood, Pucker, Tidal Wave, and Jungle Juice are but a few and there you have it, snowballs New Orleans style.

I don’t remember summer being as brutal then as I think it is now. Today we all carry sweaters with us in the summer to put on when we enter an air-conditioned building. When we get ready to leave we take off the sweater and open the door. A wall of heat hits us like a brick wall. We are constantly going back and forth between heat and cold adjusting our internal thermostat dozens of times a day. Having fans move the air gently and having the temperature change gradually has to be better for the body then the sudden and dramatic temperature changes we tolerate now. Don’t get me wrong, I love air conditioning, I really do but everything in moderation is my motto.

           I have a friend whose husband is an architect. He tells me the latest trend in buildings for places like Houston include higher ceilings with remote controllable fans to circulate the air. Window technology now advertises windows that can open easily. The happy homeowner is shown enjoying the breeze through a mesh screen. Options for cross-ventilation are included in blueprints so that air can flow freely from one area to another.  Air conditioning is designed to be turned on or off in zones so that it can be cool where the people are. Then it can be turned off in places where they are not.

            Now If only these new buildings also included The Snow Flake Maker sweltering summers might not be so bad after all.