We moved from Washington state to a suburb of Fort Worth back in 1962. It was a very hot summer day when we drove into town. My mom and dad were VERY perplexed by all the cars with their windows up and couldn’t figure it out.
Auto air conditioning was that foreign to us. Of course, we were from an area that it wasn’t really all that required.
That was during an era of transition in Texas. Texans had low taxes, good jobs, and had the desire for the finer things' like 'air conditioning' in our cars and homes. As a kid growing up in Texas, I remember the "smell of warm asphalt" in the wind as Dad sped down the single lane highways at 55 mph with all the windows rolled down in our new 1949 Ford. When we passed through a refinery town or the many fields which flared off their excess gas, we experienced a cheap thrill of sorts.
I can only imagine how a California progressive environmentalist of today would react to our living conditions back then.