In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evenin'

AI imagines watching TV in the 1950s from the front yard in the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening.

In the cool, cool, cool of the evenin’,
tell ‘em I’ll be there.
In the cool, cool, cool of the evenin’,
better save a chair.

• “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” 1951, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, music by Hoagy Carmichael

Those never lulled into an afternoon nap by the hum of an oscillating fan may have trouble understanding what follows, but Texans have not always been able to cool off by simply adjusting a thermostat.

In the long ago, when Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman recorded “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening” for Decca Records during the Truman administration, the only screens most people spent any time in front of were the ones looming above the stage in a darkened downtown theater or the smaller, tube-filled TV in the living room. Back before telephones got smart and Amazon was just a river in South America, air conditioning was not common. In fact, movie theaters and department stores (the semi-equivalent today of big box stores, only back then they were downtown) were among the few places of refuge offering refrigerated air. Well into the 1960s, even most public schools operated sans AC.

Nor did motor vehicles come from Detroit with what used to be called “factory air.” In those days, keeping cool on the road meant driving with the windows down. On a trip to El Paso with my grandparents in the 1950s, my grandmother tried to keep me cool by dipping a washcloth into a metal ice chest in the back seat and then having me hold that around my wrist.

These days, Texas is down to only two generations who remember Pre-Air-conditioning Time. The rapidly fading members of the Greatest Generation, the folks who fought in or lived through World War II, spent much of their lives trying to stay cool as best they could before mechanically chilled air became common. Their kids, the Baby Boomers, got only a taste of what life was like in the summer without AC, but it was enough to make memories.

Being in an un-air-conditioned house in hot weather could certainly be uncomfortable but sitting in a room where the thermostat is set at 71 degrees, it’s possible to remember the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summers past with at least a bit of nostalgia.

My grandparents – both born before 1900 -- knew only two summertime temperature settings for three quarters of their lives: The Heat of the Day and the Cool of the Evening.

“I don’t want you playing outside in the Heat of the Day,” my grandmother would declare back in the 1950s. “Wait until the Cool of the Evening.”

Indoors, The Heat of the Day needed to be spent close to a fan. Indeed, back then open windows and fans were just about the only way to keep cool unless you spent a lot of time in a swimming pool. Of course, some homes did have “swamp coolers.” These were evaporative “air-conditioners”” that would blow cool air if the humidity was low enough. Still, most Texans got by with natural and man-made breeze.

An afternoon rain shower could cool things off in the Heat of the Day, but during the drought of the early 1950s, that didn’t happen often. When it did, Texans considered it a big deal. If there wasn’t any lightning going on, children in bathing suits or sometimes only their birthday suits were allowed to run in the rain and gleefully splash in the water coursing along gutters and bar ditches

But, ah, the Cool of the Evening.

As the sunk sank and shadows lengthened, the mercury in the thermometer slowly receded and people began emerging from their houses. However, “cool” was a relative term. Even so, evening temperatures in the low 90s or into the 80s and sometimes even the high 70s trumped 100-plus degree afternoon readings, especially with a little wind out of the south.

In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening this rectangular device and others like it could be moved to the front window so family and friends could sit outside and watch it. Cool little guy on the right is the future author of this reminiscence.

In the early days of television, on some Cool of the Evenings one of our north Austin neighbors would turn their TV set around to face outward from the large, picture window in their living room so neighbors could sit outside on metal lawn chairs watching the black and white screen as the audio drifted through their front screen door. If that got boring, you could turn your chair and see the big screen of the nearby Burnet Drive-In. We couldn’t hear the dialog, but anyone who could read lips had it made.

Most of the time during the Cool of the Evening, people sat on their front lawns or porches and just talked. Well, they might also be eating a bowl of homemade peach ice cream and washing it down with an aluminum “glass” of iced tea, but mostly they just visited, enjoying the drop in temperature however modest compared with today’s ubiquity of refrigerated indoor air. While the grownups talked, kids clutching Mason jars with ice pick holes punched in the lids ran after fireflies, better known as lightning bugs.

For Boomer teenagers, even as air-conditioning became more common in the 1960s, hooking a tinny-sounding speaker to your car door and listening to Everly Brothers-style music until showtime was a prime Cool of the Evening activity. No matter if it had been over 100 degrees during the day, sitting with your date in your car with the windows down and a frosty Coke in your hand was cool in both senses of the word.

In that long-ago time, when we went to bed, we fell asleep with the windows open. The gentle rustling of the big cottonwood tree in the front yard made a peaceful white noise decades before I ever heard that term. Austin then being a much smaller city, the buzz of June bugs in summer and the chirping of crickets in September produced a lot more noise than passing cars.

All too soon, in a rhythm that has survived the advent of air-conditioning, the Cool of the Evening once again warmed into the Heat of the Day.