THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605250003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY
LENGTH: 78 lines
As the mercury simmered toward 100 last weekend and Virginia Beach experienced rotating blackouts initiated by the power company to cope with the surge in demand for electricity, I thought of one person: Mary Pipher.
Those without daughters may not be familiar with the new guru of adolescent girls. But Pipher is a common-sense Nebraska psychologist and best-selling author whose lifework has been trying to figure out what ails American teenage girls.
Last month Pipher spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at Chrysler Hall. Her folksy no-nonsense speech simply analyzed what's gone haywire in modern society to transform happy-go-lucky little girls into sullen, starving, unhappy adolescents.
Pipher's introductory remarks dealt with a litany of things that contribute to the decline of American civilization: junk television, violent movies, degrading music and air conditioning.
Air conditioning?
When Pipher got to this part of her talk, I couldn't resist giving my husband a sharp elbow in the ribs and a smug smile. At that moment we were on the same wave-length, Mary and I. She was articulating my personal theory of why neighborhoods fall apart, families become isolated and we generally get out of sync with nature: The pervasivenesss of air conditioning.
First, of course, Pipher talked about the greater evil: television. She said that during the '50s and '60s TV shows reinforced many of the values of American families. Today's television, she said, often undermines those values.
Then she talked movies. How sick and raw and violent they have become.
Same goes for music. Pipher joked about how her parents banned Bobby Darin's slightly suggestive hit song ``Multiplication'' when she was a teen: If you listened closely, you knew what that song was all about.
Finally Pipher got to my hot topic: air conditioning.
She didn't come right out and urge people to pull the plugs on their units - that's not her style. But she did wax nostalgic about the old days when summertime made iced tea as necessary for survival as sleep and people were forced onto their porches.
There is nothing like sweating with your neighbors during a heat wave to build community spirit.
With the advent of air conditioning, she said, the fabric of communities started to fray.
According to Pipher, 72 percent of Americans admitted not knowing their neighbors in a 1990 survey. The number of people who said they never spent time with their next-door neighbors had doubled in the past 20 years.
Air conditioning is partly to blame. It drove people indoors. We spend the hottest months and longest days of the year behind closed doors and locked windows in artificially cooled climates. It sometimes makes you gasp when you step outside and realize how hot summer can get in Hampton Roads.
Well, Pipher says that all that heat and jawing with friends strengthened families and communities. Everyone knew their neighbors and if a child transgressed, the parents knew about it immediately because neighbors would tell them.
Children back then felt they belonged to something bigger than their family.
Today many of us live on streets where we don't know who lives next door. That's not entirely due to air conditioning - with couples working long hours, many neighborhoods empty out every morning.
But when folks finally get home at night - especially on summer evenings when the sun seems reluctant to set - there's little opportunity to chat with your neighbors. Chances are they're inside watching television.
That's changing in some places. There is a developer in Texas who's been in the news lately. He's come up with a feature that is making his luxury houses sell faster than he can build them: porches. Screened porches, wrap-around porches, porches big enough to sit on.
Think of how much different things would have been last weekend when summer came calling if, instead of reaching for the thermostat, folks had grabbed a nice tumbler of iced tea and waited for cooler weather on the porch.
It would be good for our children, and we might find out we have the nicest people living right next door.
Mary Pipher would approve. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB