WILLIS HAVILAND CARRIER, GREAT AMERICAN

Let us take time out from dodging the extreme heat to thank one Willis Haviland Carrier, the inventor of air conditioning. Without this man's efforts Arizona would still be populated by cranky prospectors and the bleached bones of stray cattle and I'd be even more miserable in the summertime than I usually am. A hundred degrees is way too hot for a species like humans who came of age during an Ice Age. Maybe that traumatic history is why so many of us gravitate toward tropical climates, some ancient visceral instinct to try to stay warm in a world of mile-thick ice. Most of us (my hand is raised) enjoy our four seasons and endure the blazing Summers basically moping around in a foul mood slinking from one air conditioned space to another. Thank you, Mr. Carrier.

When tropical weather comes to New York City where I live, as it does every summer for a month or two, I am reminded why countries that are hot all the time are fairly backwards compared to cooler places. Who's got the energy to build a great civilization when it's blazing hot all the time? By the way, Willis Carrier grew up in the Snow Belt of western New York State, not in any of the hot parts of our nation. The people there were having their brains fried a little too much to invent anything other than moonshine whiskey to try and take their minds off the intense heat. They'd sit on their porches during their unbearable summers feebly waving paper fans at their faces, swatting flies and getting hammered on corn liquor. And who could blame them?

Since Carrier's invention the Sun Belt has seen a huge increase in population and productivity. For my money, those people can have the heat. Until they air condition the whole of the Sun Belt, indoors and out, I'm staying put in New Yolk City, where at least I know there's a cool Autumn and cold Winter ahead as my reward for surviving another blazing Summer. There's also lots of air conditioned movie theaters and museums and the like around here. Those New Yorkers with money beat it out of here for the mountains or some balmy seashore, but for the rest of us we build our own strategies for beating the heat. Mine is basically moping around not doing all that much.

Others like to go to our many beaches or public swimming pools. Summer in New York is great for kids, and there's a lot of breezy parks around for them to get into Summertime kid mischief. For older guys, there's also plenty of girl watching to be done, what with the weather dictating that the females wear very little, and New York ladies do it in high style as only they can. And it's always a gas to watch some of these worldly, sophisticated ladies reverting to giggling little girls when the ice cream man comes around ringing his bell.

All in all, Summer's not too horrible when you think about it, especially once the sun goes down. That's when Coney Island is at its exotic best, when Yankee Stadium is an electric emerald cathedral and when the musicians pull out their guitars and congas in Washington Square Park while the pretty girls dance. New York City is still the best place in the planet, any time of the year. But still I salute Willis Haviland Carrier, inventor of air conditioning and for that reason alone, a Great American.