Canadians should have a statue honouring the person who invented air conditioning. Not a run-of-the-mill monument. Heck, no! It should be 10-storeys high and gilded in the best metal possible.
This would be most appropriate in a land given to months of chilly weather only an ex mother-in-law could match! Add to that the bone-numbing freezes and the tumultuous, ever-changing vacillations of spring and fall. You got it. Canada in a good year!During my youth, long before this current summer of 2010, survival during sweat-inducing high temperatures was a matter of creativity and imagination. Creativity came about in many ways. Folded paper or whatever made fans to wave in front of your face. Ladies would even fold a dollar bill or light cardboard to waft in front of their face. The hotter the day the faster they fanned.Of course, not one of these drafty souls would consider the energy they had to expend to create a refreshing draft.Another chill-inducing trick was to place a block of ice in a washtub and have an electric fan blow air over it. The idea was that the breeze created by the fan would wash over the ice block and carry the chilled air to whoever sat in front.My parents and I lived in a five-room flat over a store facing onto Queen Street East. It was horribly hot in summer and their escape plan was to sleep outdoors. There were bugs. Yes! But the cooled air of evening made the adventure worthwhile.The inside air of our flat never cooled once the roof above was sun-baked. The last summer we lived there before moving to the country, West Hill, the thermometer registered in the high nineties. Unbearable!My dad decreed that we would sleep on the back porch. It had a tin floor, open railings and no screening. A two-storey staircase led to this platform and every raccoon and skunk in the neighbourhood knew it.To escape the heat we risked stings, exposure to rain and pesky nocturnal animals, no doubt attracted by the bakery next door. The baker tended to discard stale bread and other crumbs into his yard. A smorgasbord with us as an alternative.Even if my folks could have afforded air conditioning, a new fangled idea that was as very pricey, the landlord would not allow us to install a unit in his windows. Probably because he did not have one, so why should a tenant.The last summer we lived there was very hot with no relief. Every day the sun shone and our home was an oven. Our gold fish boiled in his bowl. Then I fell out of a tree and shattered my arm in three places.The pain, the cast and heat almost killed me. I was consigned to the back porch full time for relief and to keep my quiet. To ease my distress my parents bought an electric fan and it was never off. In later years we installed air conditioning in our house and blessed the person who invented the idea to turn a house into a refrigerator. Is there anything to compare with the pleasure of modified temperatures on a day called a "scorcher?"Please mail any donations for the statue fund to me.