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In Philadelphia the other night, driving around looking for a place to buy a nice bouteille du vin, my new friend Krystal and I stumbled upon an ice cream shoppe with a line out the door, a sweet patio set up, and an irresistible allure that only a hot summer's night (and a waning interest in wine hunting) could help trigger. Apparently, The Franklin Fountain is a well know hot-spot for the ice cream connoisseur. That frozen cow's milk was good, let me tell you.

What really got me was the atmosphere. It was like stepping into 1908 all over again (that sort-of implies that I already have, which makes me giggle because it's probably true, but I digress...). They certainly get a 10/10 for authenticity in my book. The quality of the product is enough to garner those stars but the whole package, which it seems is nothing short of a requirement for anything to truly succeed and 'convince', made my ice-cream-licking experience a total joy.

Most notable (besides the aforementioned attributes), for me, was this notice posted to the wall:

A Treatise on the Ills of Forcible Air

OR

A Justification For Refusing Mr. Carrier’s Patent for

An Apparatus for Treating Air.

By Messrs. R. Burleigh & J. Heinbach, Ed.

June, 1906.

i. Civilized man has existed for thousands of years without the aid of conditioned air.What deems the Modern Man to be so weak?

ii. Sweating is the human body’s means for cooling.Without our natural venting, in what lies the use of perfumed deodorants?

iii. Obesity is the product of comfortable inaction.

iv. Such Conditioning Apparatuses are monstrous machines compromising nature’s gifts of light and sound, never mind architectural integrity.

v. Our own Dr. Benjamin Franklin extolled the virtues of fresh air ventilation in a letter to Benjamin Rush (1773), noting “People often catch cold from one another when shut up together in close rooms, coaches, etc., and when sitting near and conversing so as to breath in each other’s transpiration.”

vi. Air-borne ailments such as the so-called “Legionnaires” are propagated by these evil contraptions, as close to home as the finest rooms of the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel.

vii. What pleasure does one derive from savoring frozen dainties, such as Ice Cream or Tuft’s Arctic Soda Water, on a Warm day in a Cold room?

viii. Is the Nature of our “Modern” society to be Conditioned to accept these Machines?Or will our Mother N. succeed in her time-honored wisdom of a breeze?The mores or lesser of men shall decide.

TAKE NOTICE!

Mankind has meandered through all previous millennia without the crutch of a mechanized breeze. Throughout the ages fresh air has hardened and sculpted our vitality. Such a supplement as conditioned-air is unnecessary and liable to reroute our evolutionary trajectory source-wards. We here at The Franklin Fountain vehemently refuse to conform to the hegemonic demands of a moribund society.

While coolants and refrigerants may very well provide a frigid interior for Fountain clientele, they would simultaneously expel a proportionate amount of heat into an already-sweltering exterior atmosphere (as the first Law of Thermodynamics should have it.) It would be downright rude of us to swaddle ourselves with chilled air while sloughing off the heat to our neighbors. The aforementioned contraptions behave in the manner of the most avaricious loan shark: Offering temporary comfort only to collect later with exuberantly compounded interest. The heat and noxious gases that these newfangled gadgets belch into the welkin accumulate exponentially. The toxicity of this gaseous alluvium is perilous, for it will desiccate our fragile atmosphere, rendering our planet’s airy aegis as torrid as praline brittle. We refuse to contribute to this harrowing scenario.

Modernity has depleted this fair country of much of its once-ample asper. Convenience has cost us our character and indolence is now an all-too-common syndrome of the American populace. We refuse to compromise spirit for luxury.

The Virtuse of Sweat

I. Let us not forget that homo sapiens are just another species of animals, which biologically must excrete all sorts of fluids, with transpiration (also termed ‘perspiration’ in some universities) being the most elementary example.

II. Transpiration is a signal to let others humans know that we are feeling a particular way, especially under warm conditions when the anti-arid action is accelerated.

III. Male sweat is thought to contain pheromones that trigger physiological activity in females, increase brain activity in women and peak arousal.

IV. Transpiration contains mainly water, so as the body drinks it up, it must release it in various ways.

V. Sweating shows that we are working. The harder we work, the harder we sweat. This is not to be underestimated!

VI. What is the term “sweat equity” without sweat? True equity requires physical output or work to create wealth; otherwise it is hollow materialism.

VII.When we are perspiring together, sweat lubricates the situation.

VIII.Benjamin Franklin penned “No Gains without Pains” and particularly promoted athletics to keep the body trim.Whilst sweating is a sign of our efforts, Dr. Franklin patented a unique “disposable Underarm Sweat Shields” to absorb the effects