Hot Enough For Ya?

  What once were lush carpets of green are slowly withering away to crinkly, brown fire hazards.  Frantic warnings about checking on the elderly are front page news.  Dr. Mike, eschewing his white coat and for-show-only stethoscope, appears on Fox-29 to pontificate on the necessity of choosing the right sunblock (NOTE: these were called "suntan" lotions when I was a kid).  Roy Oswalt lurches from the mound at Wrigley Stadium in a heat exhaustion haze.  A section of I-95 (or is that 76?  Or 476?  Or Roosevelt Boulevard?  No matter.  It's a road) buckles under the pressure of oppressive heat.  Cicadas belt out warning cries of "What the heck is wrong with you?  Get inside!"  The general populace sweats more than Mel Gibson at a B'Nai B'rith convention.
  Don't get me wrong.  I'm no Heat Miser.  I enjoy basking in the pool like an overweight sea lion as much as anyone (as long as there are no killer whales around), but I often wonder:
  What did mankind, the elderly, and small children do before air conditioning was invented a little over 100 years ago?
  As recently as the 19th century, people were walking around wearing more clothes than you'd see at the Playboy Mansion in any given decade.  Women, especially, had to endure a wardrobe which must have been as brutal as any afternoon on the Schuykill Expressway.  What with all the lace, linen, crinoline (I think that's cloth), whalebone corsets, bonnets (for the love of all that's holy), and stays made of...something, it's a wonder there weren't more Lizzie Bordens around to go crackers with an ax.

  Men had it a little better, I suppose.  At least they didn't have to walk around with their abdomen stuffed into an hourglass.  And, unless you were Walt Whitman, they probably never wore petticoats (if there are any Whitman descendants reading this, I apologize). However, the men had to go to war with all that went with that particular little hobby.
  From what I read (I'm not old to have actually experienced it. Close) the weather was absolutely horrendous in Gettysburg in July, 1863 when the Southern army wandered into Pennsylvania looking for some tank tops and board shorts at Ye Olde Forman Mills.  What with the long-sleeve wool uniforms, it's no wonder there was a huge fight for three days.
  What I'm getting at is, that while I agree this weather is dreadful, it could be worse.
  If nothing else, winter is coming.

Thou should quit your whinin' and pick up a hammer