It's hot in Pittsburgh today -- 85 degrees and humid, too. This prompted me to do something I don't often do: turn on the air conditioning.

Generally, I prefer the heat and humidity over the bland hum of the air-conditioning unit that pumps cool air into houses shuttered up just as they were in the thick of winter.

For years in Pittsburgh and many other cities -- as a thick heat settled over the horizon making sleeping impossible -- whole families carried blankets and sleeping bags down to the river shore, where the air was cooler. Hundreds of families and people spread out joined together by a simple need to sleep, but in the process they were fully engaged with the heat and the cool and were driven to be with each other.
 
Sure, I know, air conditioning certainly has its good points -- it is the reason folks are able to move down south, and conditioned air has kept folks with breathing conditions alive who otherwise would suffer mightily during thick heat spells.

It's a relatively recent innovation, too. It was invented by Willis Haviland Carrier in 1902 initially for industrial applications. It wasn't until 1924 that it was applied to human comfort. And it was many more years after that that it became commonplace in homes across America. (Read about Carrier's fascinating story here.)

When I was a kid in the '70s-- before air conditioning was affordable to most folks -- my father was a master a rigging up a series of fans in the house to bring the cool evening air inside and pump the hot, stale air up through the attic fan.

And as I lay down at night to sleep, I could hear a whole world outside, intermingled with the hum of the fans -- the sound of a baby crying, a motorcycle down-shifting on some faraway hill, a husband and wife squabbling...

I miss that. We're supposed to be awake and alive and consumed with the sounds of summer -- it stirs and enlivens the human soul -- but nowadays everybody has air conditioning and all you hear in most neighborhoods are the humming air conditioning units pumping cool air into homes in which people are isolated and aloof... and oblivious to the sounds and scents and sensitivities of summer.

In any event, here's the story of my father and his mastery over window fans on hot summer days -- a skill that is no longer needed now that so many folks have air conditioning.