FIGHTING THE HEAT

The heat wave this summer has made me remember what we did when it was hot when I was a little girl. Our house was not air-conditioned, and the St. Louis area can be VERY hot in the summer. I remember that one summer the temperature got up to 113 degrees Farenheit! That was before the heat-index was invented, so it doesn't count the humidity, which was also very high. Since heat rises, my dad set up a cot in the basement and took a book down there to read where it was cooler.

In the afternoons, sometimes we would go out in the yard and play in the spray from the hose, or sit in an enameled dishpan, a small one for each of us. Our house had a big front porch, where we would sit on rocking chairs and try to keep from moving too much when it was really hot.
Sometimes we would go to the city's swimming pool, but not very often.
Sometimes in the evening we would go for a ride in the car, just to cool off. The car wasn't air-conditioned either, but if we opened the window the wind would make us cooler.

Sometimes we would go to Heman Park or Forest Park to look at the fountains with their colored lights. We weren't allowed to run through the fountains, but sometimes a little spray would blow at us and make us feel cooler.
Picture of Forest Park Fountain courtesy of J.S. Hollands on Flickr.
To cool off the house at night, we had a big window fan in the upstairs hall. The doors at the bottom of the stairs would be closed and the upstairs windows were opened. That would cause the fan to pull air from the upstairs windows. The idea was that the breeze would cool us off enough that we could sleep. It usually worked, but sometimes it was so hot outside, that nothing made us comfortable.