I’m old enough to remember when A/C was not a standard feature on a new car (it still isn’t in many parts of the world). Traveling from our home in New Haven CT down south was always an exercise in ventilation. Windows down – exposed to the world, a chink in the metal capsule’s armor. We could see out. People could see in.
Today, a sweltering heat wave has Vermont under siege. Our windows are up, probably so tight that we could pull a James Bond and drive into a river and still stay dry. They’re also heavily tinted, for shade and security. Miles has nearly stopped panting. It’s our job to make friends, but that’ll have to be done outside of the vehicle, where people can actually see and talk to us. Who would want to approach a fierce looking (albeit wheezing) Nissan Xterra with beefy tires, limousine-dark windows and bumper stickers from the redneck lands?
In this state, people still sit outside on their porches in the evening. Who knows, maybe they have A/C, maybe they don’t. Prior to the Freon invasion, that’s what we did to stay cool at the height of summer. And it forced us to be neighborly because there was no hiding behind closed doors. We’d die of heat prostration otherwise.
[Farmers Diner motto: “Think Locally, Act Neighborly.”]
Cars and A/C, the great comforters. The great isolators. And the great equalizers. Hedges B&B owner Barbara back in Clinton NY had this great theory: that the worst thing that ever happened to the Northeast was air conditioning. Suddenly, the poor, agrarian South could stay cool. People could work harder and longer. And states could dole out tax breaks to encourage business in the north to come on down to a more hospitable region. Meanwhile, the Great Lakes region rusts, stuck with high taxes and a lot of lake-effect snow in the winter.
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