Students in northern climates eagerly anticipate “Spring Break”.
- Winter has passed and the smell of blossoming trees saturates the air as thousands of mostly young adults head south.
At their destinations, they do what most college students do best, and that is to party. The beach, the beer, and the bikinis rule the day, the only regret being most people only have a week to “let it all out”. One spring break ritual is the “Wet T-shirt” contest, an event of unknown origin. Some say it dates to 1971 in an Idaho bar when the first contest was held to promote a brand of skis. Others link it to New Orleans discotheques in the mid-1970s. My “theory” dates to a room on a hot day in the 1750s when Ben Franklin took off his sweat-drenched shirt. This was not an exhibitionist display for a colonial age show titled “Founding Fathers Go Wild”, but old Ben noticed something. His wet shirt felt cooler than the dry shirt he was about to put on. He was quite a scientist, so his observation led to him teaming up with an English chemistry professor to study evaporative cooling. Their discoveries and others eventually led to the invention of air conditioning about 150 years later. Spring and Autumn with their normally mild climates are also the time for people to give their central HVAC systems a “spring break” with a tune-up and cleaning by a qualified HVAC technician. This is the time of year when the HVAC system may not be needed to stay comfortable and HVAC companies are usually not as busy. They may even offer discounts that will save you some cash to use as the entry fee in the next wet T-shirt contest in your area.