Sweating it out before A/C

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal 24.com

Do some readers remember those  salt tablets in big jars in un-air-conditioned buildings  (except the executive offices) in the summer? I do, mostly from summer jobs in downtown Boston. I’m not sure how effective they were in staving off heat stroke but they, along with those big fans at the top of poles, were summer symbols. Things got more humane after the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in 1971, one of several admirable “liberal’’ administrative creations of the Nixon administration; far more companies installed air conditioning as a result.

Before then, many of us simply moved more slowly in the summer, inside and out. A certain level of lassitude was acceptable.