I'll never take electricity for granted again

[MelissaWV]

They were real pussies in 1901 as well.

 

[brandon]

I had to google prostration. I'm still not totally sure what it means in that context. I didn't know they had suburbs back then either, I thought that was a modern thing. Thanks for the cool piece of history Melissa!

 

[specsaregood]

//

 

[oyarde]

You had no power at all and had to live through 100+ degree heat and had no trouble getting to sleep those nights?

Man oh man when there was no a/c around, at least we had fans, and since we knew we wouldn't have a/c we always had tons of ice and cold water around. Your childhood was different, I guess. Good on ya! No ice or fans or anything for you!

No one ever died of the heat, either, no sir!
Well , people in Illinois have been kind of pussified since they ran out the Indians and instituted Socialism , so , not really suprised there , I reckon that was 1936 ? 6/28 Indianapolis broke the 1936 high .
Darned pussification :|

[

 

[brandon]

...

 

[roho76]

Keep your self hydrated and don't stay in the sun too long. Those who are less fit will suffer the most.

 

[GunnyFreedom]

You should try going a few weeks without power after a hurricane in florida. You know all that rain those hurricanes drop? Yup, it evaporatesand hangs in the air for weeks...

I went down after Andrew as an emergency relief volunteer and helped cut people out of their homes and open neighborhoods to emergency traffic. helluva thing it was. I was just a kid but felt compelled to help.

 

[oyarde]

I had a Great Uncle , lived his entire life without utilites except while he was gone in WW1 & WW 2

 

[JudgeNapFan]

Hang wet towels in front of your open windows. They did that back in the day.

 

[pcosmar]

I went down after Andrew as an emergency relief volunteer and helped cut people out of their homes and open neighborhoods to emergency traffic. helluva thing it was. I was just a kid but felt compelled to help.

I remember. It took several days to get information out the we survived in Key West. The Media was reporting that the Keys were wiped out and both telephone and power were out.

When I first lived there in the 70s I had no AC,,
Hell, folks had lived in the Sahara and traveled through it for thousands of years.

Here the prospect of Freezing to death is more of a concern.
As much as I enjoy modern comforts,, it is good to keep perspective, and have a plan "B".

 

[Danke]

I have two generators and a portable propane heater backup, and as a last resort, a fireplace.

 

[qh4dotcom]

My electricity has been off for almost 24 hours in 100+ degree heat due to a huge storm that blew through my area. Nearly a million people were effected, and some won't have electricity for another four or five days.

But thankfully it just came back on minutes ago. I was ROASTING. I'll never take electricity for granted again.

If that happens again....get in your car and turn on the AC

 

[Revolution9]

Love you man, but.....the pussification of America. I made it through my entire childhood, and a small portion of my adulthood, without air conditioning. As did many of us here over 40, I suspect.

I hate air conditioning. It screws my lungs up and makes them sticky. I would rather sweat. Never had it growing up.

Rev9

 

[Revolution9]

They were real pussies in 1901 as well.

Looks like city deaths. Probably apartment complexes. Houses had root cellars and front and back porches which provided air conditioning. So..you can stop trying to cal AngelaTC out. I have the same experience as her. I had a basement to sleep in. Yeah.. Modern America is pussies. No frakkin' way around it.

Rev9

 

[qh4dotcom]

Love you man, but.....the pussification of America. I made it through my entire childhood, and a small portion of my adulthood, without air conditioning. As did many of us here over 40, I suspect.

I also made it through my childhood without air conditioning...but it wasn't necessary where I grew up...average temperature is 70 F...it rarely gets over 85F...most homes and buildings don't have air conditioning.

Now it's necessary for me here in South Florida.

 

[jay_dub]

Looks like city deaths. Probably apartment complexes. Houses had root cellars and front and back porches which provided air conditioning. So..you can stop trying to cal AngelaTC out. I have the same experience as her. I had a basement to sleep in. Yeah.. Modern America is pussies. No frakkin' way around it.

Rev9

It's not just people getting soft. I grew up without a/c here in Mississippi, but we lived in houses that were built off the ground so we had airflow underneath. Those houses were also built with higher ceilings for the heat to get up away from you and there were lots of big windows to open up and catch a breeze. Plus we had good shade trees.

Nowadays, houses are built on a slab, have 8 foot ceilings and smaller windows. Sub-divisions are built by ripping out all the trees and planting crappy seedlings after the houses go in. It just get hotter in those boxes.

Yeah, folks are getting soft, but living in a box with no shade is like living in Hell. I made it through Katrina with no power for almost 2 weeks and further back, made it through Camille with no power for over 3 weeks. It ain't fun, but it can be done.

 

[Yieu]

I had to google prostration. I'm still not totally sure what it means in that context. I didn't know they had suburbs back then either, I thought that was a modern thing. Thanks for the cool piece of history Melissa!

To prostrate is to lay flat on the floor. It is often done in worship by Hindus before the image of the Lord. In this case I believe it means people who fell due to heat, but did not die.

 

[MelissaWV]

Looks like city deaths. Probably apartment complexes. Houses had root cellars and front and back porches which provided air conditioning. So..you can stop trying to cal AngelaTC out. I have the same experience as her. I had a basement to sleep in. Yeah.. Modern America is pussies. No frakkin' way around it.

Rev9

Modern America does have its fair share of "pussification" (tangent: it's interesting that so many guys spend their time trying to get something they think so little of as to use it as an insult), but complete lack of any way to cool off is not part of it. People in this thread have talked about getting along without air conditioning. The post angela was responding to talked about doing without ANYTHING. No fans. Nothing.

If you were sleeping in a basement, you were underground, which helps regulate temperature a great deal (I wonder why you did that, though; sounds like a way to escape the heat... and you know what that apparently makes you!). The fact that you have to excuse away the deaths as being caused by being in a city seems strange. We're talking in general, not in perfect conditions where there's a breeze and we can sleep below ground level and there's a porch and a root cellar and also the heat isn't TOO bad and oh the humidity is also not wringing the moisture out of your body. The fact remains that the human body is only designed to tolerate up to a certain level of heat over a sustained period of time, and that heat stroke is not some new malady that arose merely because of air conditioning.

The Caribbean was lovely growing up, with the breezes and the cooling storms, but when those died you started flipping on fans like there was no tomorrow. When the power went out, it was a sudden and complete hell. To add insult to injury, most of the time fires were required to keep away all manner of beasties great and small. The fires did little to cool things down. About the only remedy was to hike over to the water and sink a lawn chair partway into the sand at the edge of the water so it'd come up and keep you cool, but that only worked at night. If your power was out during the day, for many days in a row, you just had to sit out in the shade and become mosquito bait.

 

[Nirvikalpa]

I hate air conditioning. It screws my lungs up and makes them sticky. I would rather sweat. Never had it growing up.

Rev9

That's odd, because I hear the same from the various people I've been called to treat as an EMT who were having asthma attacks due to the humidity. Damn pussies... not being able to breathe isn't all that bad.

Kids who die locked in cars on hot humid days... obviously pussified.

Looks like city deaths. Probably apartment complexes. Houses had root cellars and front and back porches which provided air conditioning. So..you can stop trying to cal AngelaTC out. I have the same experience as her. I had a basement to sleep in. Yeah.. Modern America is pussies. No frakkin' way around it.

So you are aware they probably did not have cellars or front/back porches due to being in the city, then call modern america pussies because they can't handle the heat... but state you had a cool basement to sleep in (as did angela)? Makes sense.

 

[oyarde]

I was not aware that humidity caused breathing problems , humidity is strange, too much on a hot day is most miserable , not enough is not good as well.