Maybe three of you live where a.c. is not a necessity. Would you please read without gloating? My life has been spent in Gulf Coast towns. One or two days each spring or fall are perfect. In the winter even slight coolness wrapped in humidity can chill the bones. In the summer, stickiness is the way of life. At 6:00 this morning in July, I went to get the paper with the temperature already 85 and heat index 91. I know this because a son gave me a gadget to help measure how miserable I am.
In Hammond, the house on Linden had a big window fan in the dining room. No one wanted to sit at that end of the table. The motion stirred the air, and it always gathered dust, pollen, and the ever present mold to scatter through the rest of the house. My daddy made stools to hold various sizes of smaller fans, so they could be moved where needed like the kitchen, the hall by the bath to help the final drying process, and the front bedroom which was two turns away from the big fan.
About June 1, we three moved to a large back porch, aptly named The Sleeping Porch. Most space was taken up by a double iron bed. I had a cot over by a screen wall. An oscillating fan at the foot of the big bed allowed us to pull a sheet half-way up some nights. I tried to go to sleep before Daddy did because he snored. A good night was if it rained, giving a break from the heat. A slated blind could be let down by my cot and tied to stay in place.
Air conditioning wasn’t just a blessing for houses. It also made cars tolerable. Long trips resembled moving through a wind tunnel with the windows rolled down. All was bearable until we stopped for gas. Someone stayed with the car while another went to pay, so we wouldn’t have to close it up and create a portable sauna.
Did we survive? Obviously. Mother cooked noon dinner before 9:00 a.m. Everyone pulled down the shades and rested in the afternoon. We sprayed for mosquitoes and sat under the oak tree in the back yard that moment in the evening when the heat broke. Those memories help remind me to really be grateful for my electrical bill in the summer when I consider the alternative. I don’t mind knowing I need to take a sweater for any public building, and a cool room at night is a vote for progress.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Genesis 2:8
Let Me Tell Ya 