Ever consider the disgusting subtext of the word "sweater"? When department stores use it, they're talking warm wooly pullovers and cashmere cardigans, but look it up in the American Heritage Dictionary and the first meaning is "one that sweats, especially profusely." According to an attribution from 1828 in the Online Etymology Dictionary, the garment originally seems to have been intended, not to keep people toasty on crisp fall days, but "to produce sweating and reduce weight."
Doesn't exactly make you want to run out and buy a new turtleneck. Not that we'd even want to — we live in Florida, after all, where expatriate Northerners keep whole storage units full of sweaters they will never wear again, let alone sweat in.
And God knows, we don't need any help with the sweat-producing. Summer heat comes early and stays late, so there's plenty of opportunity to get drenched. According to howstuffworks.com, the maximum amount of sweat a body not adapted to a hot climate can produce is a liter an hour (just over a quart); but if you move from, say, New England to Key West, your body will adapt by increasing your sweat production up to three times. We don't need sweaters (in the 1828 sense of the word) because we are sweaters.
Sweat is of course a healthy thing; if you get hot but can't sweat, you're in big trouble. But since the advent of A.C., we get to choose when we get hot. As has been famously pointed out by USF historian Ray Arsenault (father of Planet copy editor Anne Arsenault), air conditioning changed the culture of the South profoundly: "General Electric has proved a more devastating invader than General Sherman," he wrote in his seminal 1984 study "The End of the Long Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and Southern Culture." In fact, I wonder sometimes whether those of us who live in the Sunshine State actually spend less time in the sunshine than folks up north.
No matter — since we have the choice (and Ray Arsenault says the choice wasn't fully available in the South until the 1970s) we should take full advantage of it. If summer means staying inside more, the Planet wondered, well why not a Summer Guide that stays inside, too? And that's what we have for you this year: our flash-frozen, fully air-conditioned guide to the great indoors.
Feeling uncomfortably warm? Take a test drive inside a frigid Mercedes or plunge into an allegedly therapeutic ice bath. Need quick refreshment? Join us as we search for the coldest beer in town and the ultimate milkshake. Too hot for softball? Here's everything you need to know about indoor ice hockey, table tennis and billiard leagues. Too hot to do anything but plug in the iPod and turn on the TV? We've compiled an extensive list of movies and music that are cool in every sense of the word, plus advice on how to put together your own videogame marathons. For vicarious thrills, enjoy the saga of our now-legendary indoor campout and spring snowball fight. And to truly send a chill through your spine, consider our list of the 10 Coldest Motherfuckers in Tampa Bay. Hey, maybe you're even on it!
The No Sweat Summer Guide is all you need to stay cool all summer. And if the stories don't suffice, take the issue and stick it in the icebox for a while; it'll make a lovely cold compress, or at least a handy fan, when you're seeking a breeze on the nearest veranda.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2006.