In a summer of extreme heat, we asked our NPR readers to share the ways they keep cool without relying on air conditioning.The responses were practical, personal and inventive — shaped by childhoods without AC, long workdays outdoors and family traditions passed down through generations.
From rural Minnesota porches to Syrian balconies, here are some of the strategies they swear by.Bridgit Jordan of Minneapolis says she goes swimming in the afternoon and stays in her wet swimsuit for the rest of the evening."Combined with a fan, this keeps me cool," she writes.Olivier El Mekki, of Dijon, France, treats his bathtub as a personal plunge pool, filling it with fresh water for a day or two.
"When I feel hot, I bathe in it for one or two minutes," he says."When I get out of the bathtub, I can feel the air is hot, but not me." The inspiration? Cows.
"In summer, if there is a tree and some water in their field, you will find them in the shadow of that tree, frequently going to bathe in that water," he says.Growing up in Syria, Amber Thompson remembers cooling off with well-timed showers."In extreme heat, I used to take a cool shower in the middle of the night before going back to sleep," she says.Elizabeth Tillinghast, who grew up in Vermont, writes: "Our mother always told us to hold our wrists under cold running water.
The many arteries and veins there would rapidly transport the cooled blood throughout our bodies."Ezra Musselman, who grew up with no plumbing in southeast Minnesota, recalls cold well water that "would take your breath away" as he and his brothers sprayed each other with squirt bottles and water pistols.Dayton Bradford reports "no shortage of swimming holes" near his childhood home in southeast Tennessee.And Barbara Wunder McAslan of Florida found her own solution while mowing her grandmother's yard: "I brought a pink, inflatable kiddie pool, filled it up and plopped down in it like a whale in a bathtub."Diane Hinkle of Tennessee grew up before air c...