40 years ago in Columbia
- Thread starter 18IsTheMan
- Start date
To me it was always hot in Columbia during May through mid October regardless of the temperature. It has been 30 years since I lived in Southeast and if I went back today that heat and humidity would kill me.
I should remember that but I don`t. Maybe show that to the climate crazies. Proof that it`s always been hot at times. I know, the globe is gradually warming but it `s so slow that I`m not worried about it. It is not a crisis. Somewhere around there Al Gore said we would all probably be dead by now due the climate, didn`t he?
I live in Maryland now and it gets decently warm and humid here. But I like to think that living in South Carolina helped me build up a decent immunity to it.
That year's summer heat does not stand out to me. August 1967 stands out. I was just entering high school and went out for the football team. At my age, it had to be the JV team. But the varsity and JV boys practiced together. There were 120 of us together. The Head Coach was a former marine. There were 2 per day practices for 3 hours each. After each practice, we ran wind sprints. We must have had to run 50 wind sprints. It sure seemed like it. The heat was brutal. I remember the temperature going into the 100s. Many players quit. As we were getting low in numbers, I remember the Head Coach after one practice telling us not to quit on him. In the end, out of the 120, only 40 of us stuck it out. There was a movie that came out that summer, "The Dirty Dozen". Because there were so few in numbers, the guys on the varsity called themselves "the dirty dozen".
I recall going through a tough stretch in my adult life. One of my teammates, a couple of years older than me and on the varsity, saw my brother who told him what I was going through. He told my brother to tell me to remember August of 1967. If we survived the brutal heat of that period, we could survive just about anything else in life. That's true because I lean on that time in my life to keep me motivated. I will remember the brutal heat of August of 1967 to the end of my days on this earth.
I recall going through a tough stretch in my adult life. One of my teammates, a couple of years older than me and on the varsity, saw my brother who told him what I was going through. He told my brother to tell me to remember August of 1967. If we survived the brutal heat of that period, we could survive just about anything else in life. That's true because I lean on that time in my life to keep me motivated. I will remember the brutal heat of August of 1967 to the end of my days on this earth.
I was outside doing construction during that summer. I’ll never forget it. You would burn your hands picking up a framing square or some other metal tool. So hot!
I grew up in Augusta. I think it is the only place hotter than Columbia. Maybe being in a river valley holds the heat more?
I worked on a cattle farm and did outdoor maintenance work at several apartment complexes the Summer of '78. Two weeks of highs over 100. The streak was broken when a pop up thunderstorm cooled an afternoon down, after the high hit 99. It went back to four more days of 100 or more after that day.
I think sitting on the Fall Line (both Augusta and Columbia do) means they are too far inland to get any ocean breezes and too far from the mountains to get any cooler air coming off of the mountains.
I worked on a cattle farm and did outdoor maintenance work at several apartment complexes the Summer of '78. Two weeks of highs over 100. The streak was broken when a pop up thunderstorm cooled an afternoon down, after the high hit 99. It went back to four more days of 100 or more after that day.
I think sitting on the Fall Line (both Augusta and Columbia do) means they are too far inland to get any ocean breezes and too far from the mountains to get any cooler air coming off of the mountains.
Went to grad school from 1978-1982 in Birmingham, AL. I think B’ham
could challenge Columbia for the hottest “hot spot”. Like Columbia, middle of the state with NO sea breeze. I lived in an old southern house which had no AC. We had high ceilings and plenty of fans. Also, my old Chevy
Impala had no AC. I missed the sea breeze of Myrtle Beach.
could challenge Columbia for the hottest “hot spot”. Like Columbia, middle of the state with NO sea breeze. I lived in an old southern house which had no AC. We had high ceilings and plenty of fans. Also, my old Chevy
Impala had no AC. I missed the sea breeze of Myrtle Beach.
Do people who live in Columbia ever get use to the summer heat? I know that I have been to a lot of football games at the start of the season and would almost pass out when I got out of the car.
My mother and stepfather live in Columbia. I know they have never said they were "used to the heat". The heat in Columbia is a fact of life, nothing to get worked up about since you can't do a thing about it.
I have a hard time imagining what living in Columbia, or anywhere in the South for that matter, before air conditioning was like. I guess if you didn't know any different, you didn't really worry about it too much. My grandmother lived in Augusta from 1899 until 1992 and never had air conditioning in her house. I spent a lot of time at her house and I don't remember it being unbearable. The worst time was when you were trying to go to sleep at night. That ceiling fan blowing warm air on you didn't help much.
My Mother-In Law lived outside of Columbia until 1991 until she passed away and never had AC- but she lived in that area her entire life and knew nothing else. I'm not sure she would have let anyone put in AC in her home, even if it were free.
When you grow up in it, I guess your body just adjusts. It wouldn't fly today, but living in Columbia in the 80s, it was the norm for my parents to stop at a store and leave me and my siblings in the baking car in the middle of summer while they went in. They'd get arrested today.
It should be against the law to have day football games in South Carolina for the months of August and September. I think at one point when South Carolina was still an Independent, normally they would have all the home games in the month of September start at 7:00 or maybe it was 7:30 in the evening.
There's a reason why the age range of most in attendance is 45 and under.
I've been in or near Kershaw my whole life. But after chemo-surgery-chemo, it has been pretty rough this year. I've always been able to just tough it out, but not this year. Our AC went out around noon last Wednesday. It was 81 degrees in the house when I woke up. The local HVAC guy, who I know personally from our younger days, had it fixed by 9AM. I must have slept all of 3 hours that night.
BTW, if you live in or near Kershaw, I highly recommend Kershaw Heating & Cooling. They won't leave you hanging.
I've only been north of the M-D line maybe 4 times in summer. The last two of those were during nearly historic heat waves, even all the way up into Vermont. We had to come back home to get some relief.
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