Hot summertime recalls the heat from yesteryear

Summer time in Texas. Before air conditioning. Remember?
People used hand fans, shade trees and maybe a block of ice in the icebox.
They sat out on the porch until the evening darkness and breezes cooled the inside bedrooms where they could go to sleep. If they didn't sit on their own front porch, they could stroll the neighborhood and go sit on someone else's porch and talk.
Many would sleep on a screened-in back porch. Some even outside on the cots.
This reporter recalls sleeping year-round, winter and summer, through snow and rainstorms, on the screened back porch.
Box window fans and turning-table fans were also helpful. But especially, some family homes had the large central fan up in the attic that would draw air up through the entire house. Those were very effective but likely took a lot of electricity.
By the way, upper floors were too hot in the day and were occupied only at night with the windows open.
A room's ceiling fan was important. With high ceilings, the heat would rise and gather in the top one-third of a room, making the lower part of the room relatively cool. The ceiling fan would push the heat up in summer and down in winter.
No one had air conditioning. Perhaps the large department store downtown did, and would let its entrance doors be open so that the cold breeze would invite the customers in.
And weren't the churches modern-and its members perhaps a little guilty-when the sanctuary got air conditioning. Wonder if the hymn singing was better or worse?
People wore looser and less clothing. The farm and ranch cattle pond made for good swimming, too.
But, most of all, people just got out in the summer heat and ignored it.
Oh, perhaps it was a good time for taking naps in the middle of the day. Perhaps mothers kept children inside after the noon meal until about 2 p.m. when the children could go back out and ride their bicycles or play around the barn.
Yes, it was hot and sometimes miserable. But we didn't know about air conditioning and what we were missing. We were used to it and never as unhappy as someone in today's modern, climate controlled home when the air conditioner fails.