We have built a culture that worships comfort and fears hardship. We have forgotten that resilience is forged in sweat not in climate controlled rooms;

Greg Maresca , Bio and Archives--July 19, 2026

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Air conditioning is a great equalizer. The recent July heatwave on the east coast proved it again. More to the point: the American Southwest would not be what it is today without it.

As great as the “air” is in many ways it has softened us. It turned a nation that once endured the summer’s heat and discomfort into a people who panic when the thermostat creeps above 75.

“We put in air conditioning, stayed year-round, and ruined America.”

We scurry from our air-conditioned homes to our air-conditioned cars to our air-conditioned workplaces horrified to break a sweat. We have become a nation that flees from the slightest inconvenience retreating behind sealed windows and humming HVAC units convinced that comfort is a constitutional right.

My cousin proved the exception over the recent........

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