Who came up the heat index?

Who developed the equation of the temperature and humidity that gives us that “real feel” we sometimes see on weather segment of the television news?

I have to wonder sometimes why those two items were combined to give us a new phrase to our vocabulary that has become a catch phrase for “hot.”

Hot.

When I was growing up that was all you needed to describe a summer’s day. There were no extra phrases, no explanations of the science behind the heat index; it was hot, and life went on as usual. Adults went to work and children, at their mother’s urging, went out to play. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, air conditioning was something most families couldn’t afford, and anyone whose house had that marvelous appliance (especially if it were central air) was the envy of the neighborhood and the place to go on a summer’s day.

I remember when we got our first air conditioner. It was the summer of 1963, and it was placed in the living room, where we all gathered during the day and into the night. At night when we went to bed, the air conditioner went off, the windows went up and the fans came on. That one lonely machine just couldn’t cool the entire house. When we moved to a new house two years later, we thought we were in heaven because it had three air conditioners — one in the den, one in my parents’ room and one in mine and my brother’s bedroom. But despite the cool environment, the orders were still the same, “Go out and play.”

You rarely hear those words during the summer now. Technology has made air conditioners more efficient at cooling, and we’re spoiled. We spend more time indoors. I believe in my younger days all the time my friends and I spent outside made us a little immune to the heat. I believe several years ago when the air conditioner in the car I was driving at the time went out and I didn’t repair it. I had, as we used to say years back when many cars didn’t have air, a 4-90 air conditioner (roll down all four windows and go 90 mph). And I was able to handle the heat better. I wasn’t immune to heat, but I was somewhat comfortable.

Now, my family and I live in an apartment with a great air conditioner that keeps it cold; sometimes too cold. We drive in air-conditioned cars that keep the heat out. And now, when we step outside during the day, we feel the heat hit use like a blast from the exhaust of a jet fighter.

So tomorrow I’ll get up, watch the morning news, get dressed, and worship the heat index as my excuse to stay inside.