Opinion: Our office is very air-conditioned, so it must be summer
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Tomorrow is the summer solstice, or the first official day of summer (no, it wasn’t Memorial Day, or whatever earlier spring day when Californians start dressing and beach-going like it’s summer). For those of you sad sacks like me trapped in offices for most or all of today’s long daylight hours, you can read what The Times had to say about the weather. Yes, weather was once a constant topic of editorials in The Times (now, it only makes the occasional appearance).
Check out our Cold Copy on California weather for some purple prose. A sampling of old-timey bigotry and weird science from 1909:
If any one is disposed to make an outcry about the only really hot weather of summer, take him aside and advise him to ‘keep cool.’ Really we ought to rejoice.... It is better than cold cream and enamel for my lady’s complexion. It will bleach her out so that her cheeks will look like peaches and cream, the peaches unpeeled and glorious in their blushes.... Go to the nearest Chinese laundry and see wise John in his two white garments doing the ‘washee’ as careless about the heat as you please.... If we eat here as we did in the cold lands where we were born, and do not exercise, the equable weather fails to open the pores of the skin, and the other organs are overtaxed..... Any wise and conscientious physician will confirm all this....’
Once you’re finished reading editorials, get out there, take a book, cook some food.