Comforts quickly become necessities
Are we getting too soft? It was one of those hot, sultry days when my parents came to visit. While my lovely wife and mother were visiting one of the numerous stores in our area, Dad and I went for a short drive.
Many years ago he and his father hauled supplies for the Frick Coal Co., including horses as well as timber for supporting the mine roofs.
He was fairly familiar with this area then and was curious how it had changed.
We drove to Fairchance (he recalled the old Wynn Company Store, the building of which still stands) but we couldn’t find the stables where he used to haul those horses.
As I said, it was one of those really uncomfortably warm, muggy days; so, we had the air conditioner on in the car.
“How did we ever get along without it (air conditioning),’ Dad commented.
We didn’t have an air-conditioned vehicle until…well…until long after I had flown the family nest. Somehow, I don’t remember that we really needed air conditioning then. Maybe the days weren’t quite as hot (nor were there as many of them) some years back. I don’t know. But I agreed with him that air conditioning is more of a necessity than a luxury nowadays.
It’s hard for me to imagine that because for about two decades all I drove were International Scouts, what I like to call the forerunner of today’s SUV. And Scouts had little in the way of creature comforts.
They had a seat, a steering wheel and doors and windows but they were not made for long road trips. The reason I drove them was for the four-wheel drive. It seems our winters back in the late 70s and early 80s were a little more fierce than they have been in the past decade and I wanted to make sure I got to where I was going.
It was okay in the winter and fall not to have air conditioning. But I remember a few times rolling down every window and even opening the top half of the tailgate to get enough breeze flowing through to cool off the interior. Needless to say, the sound of rushing air was enough to quell any conversation one might want to have.
But I felt rugged driving down the road in my Scout, getting pelted with every piece of dirt and dust kicked up by the vehicles in front of me. Scouts were not very aerodynamic.
However, when snow started to fly I couldn’t have asked for a better vehicle to get me to and fro. There were some pretty dicey days and nights when I lived in the mountains and the four-wheel drive was appreciated.
Today, there are SUVs that not only have four-wheel drive and air conditioning but just about everything else too, including the kitchen sink. I can’t imagine taking one of these heaping, extremely expensive machines off road. One friend has an SUV with heated seats in it. I think he’s missing out on the joy of leaping onto a cold vinyl seat some 30-degree below zero day in the middle of January.
But then we moved to town a little more than a year ago and if the snow piles up too much, I won’t need four-wheel drive; just a good pair of boots.
And maybe a St. Bernard with a cask of good brandy.
Have a good day.
Jim Pletcher is the Herald-Standard’s business editor. E-mail: jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.