Last night our air-conditioner went out. It's August. Temperatures have been hovering around 97 degrees with 260% humidity. Of course, that's an exaggeration but it doesn't feel like one. We noticed about 9:30 it was getting hot in the house, and when we looked at the thermostat, it read 80 degrees. It was set for 75. By the time we went to bed, it was at 82 degrees and rising.
Lucky for us we installed six ceiling fans in this house when we first bought it. Every one of them was going on high. We thought about opening windows but the humidity ruled that idea out immediately. Instead, we laid on the bed underneath the whirling fan and tried to go to sleep without any cover on us at all. The moon is full right now and the light filtering in made the room glow. Neither of us could settle down enough to drift off, so we started reminiscing, about how neither of us grew up with air-conditioning in our houses. I seriously don't know how we stood it, except we were ignorant of it and unaccustomed to it.
My childhood bedroom only had a single window, but my bed was shoved right up next to it. With the window open wide, and with the helicopter fan on a chair in the middle of the room, I stayed cool at night. But this was in Corpus Christi, so how could it have been all that cool? I must have been wet with dew every morning from the humidity coming off the Gulf of Mexico, but I don't remember that part.
Our house was a modest, post-WWII house in a tacky-tacky neighborhood--block after block of houses built from one of three floorplans. My best friend, who lived kitty-cornered from us, had the same house as ours only turned around, a mirror image. For some reason, the architect who designed these houses thought it would be a great idea to put a planter box in between the kitchen and living room as a sort of room divider. I don't know of a single house in the neighborhood who kept that planter box. Daddy filled ours with concrete and mother arranged cushions on it in an attempt to make it into a bench, an uncomfortable one stuck off in an odd corner. For my brother, Ray, and I it became a great stage. Ray, who by age 10 was already an actor in his heart, choreographed complicated dance routines for the two of us. Many of them started with a launch off that concrete former planter box with high-kicks and leaps. It's a wonder we didn't break our necks.
We had a garage, which made us special. Many of the houses in our neighborhood only had driveways. Daddy and his next-in-line brother, Sid, built the garage together. The only thing they didn't do was pour the concrete foundation. After the mixer truck left, Daddy pressed my right foot into the edge of the cement and wrote the date with his index finger. My 4-year-old footprint must surely still be there.
Our garage was as big as our house. It was a two-car-plus boat garage with a grease pit so Daddy could work on our cars without lying on his back. There was a small shop at one end where he had his table saws. I used to hang out in that shop for hours when he worked. Now, I wish I had learned some of the things he knew, but at that time I just wanted to be wherever he was. He really was good with his hands, had taken classes in work working and mechanics at the local tech college. By profession, he was an accountant, the youngest of five to second-generation immigrants from Eastern Europe. All Dad's brothers could build and fix and take care of plumbing and the like. Most of my friends had dads who could do those things, too. It seemed to be something men were born knowing how to do, just like our moms all knew how to cook and sew and clean house. I didn't realize until I was grown that not all men are handy with their hands, just like not all women can wield a skillet or a needle-and-thread.
In the center of our garage, double doors opened onto a crescent shaped patio where we played hours of ping-pong, or sat in the Adirondack chairs Daddy built visiting with neighbors, friends, and family. Out in the yard was a playhouse Daddy also built, for my fifth birthday. It looked exactly like our real house, complete with the same asbestos siding and tan paint. My dog, Gaylie, and I had many tea parties inside that playhouse, although I do remember his tail knocking things off the little shelves built into the wall. I suppose someone since has dismantled the playhouse but it was still there when we moved. By then I was 12 and could barely crawl inside the door.
Back to my bedroom and that noisy, oscillating fan. It was a huge thing, full of oil and dust. It had two speeds--loud blast (and I mean BLAST) and so low it would almost stop oscillating. The blast speed was so forceful I could tie-down the corners of my top sheet and the wind from the fan would lift the sheet like a parachute. Me, my scottie dog stuffed animal named Scottie (how original!) and Lollipop, my purple poodle, would play under that sheet tent until Mom or Dad finally hollered at me to go to sleep. I was never allowed to handle the fan even to turn it off or on. A friend of my parents had a young son who stuck his hand inside the cage of a moving fan and had lost two fingers.
My mother mostly lived in fear that my brother or I would do permanent damage to our bodies. There was a entire list of things we were not allowed to ever do, including climbing trees, horseback riding, and roller skating. Of course, we did all three of those things whenever the opportunity arose. I recall being really high up a backyard tree one day when Mother came home early from work. I stayed still and quiet, heart pounding. She didn't even notice Gaylie (who normally mauled anybody who came into the backyard with lots of hello hugs and kisses) sitting patiently at the base of the tree staring up at me in the limbs. As soon as Mom stepped inside the back door, I clambered down, much to Gaylie's delight. He was so happy to have me back on earth, he tore around the backyard in big wide zoomies.
We weren't poor but we weren't rich either. Since Mother worked (back then most mom's didn't) we had enough to go out to eat on Friday nights. We rotated between Piccadilly Cafeteria, Taco Village, Angelo's Pizza, and Whataburger. Occasionally, we got to go to Chung May's. It was a high-end (for the times and the place) linen-tablecloth Chinese food restaurant. Back then, we knew nothing about Chinese food so we always order the Cantonese Surprise Dinner for Four. It varied from trip to trip, but it was alway served in multiple courses with hot tea in a precious tiny porcelain pot. We felt fancy when we ate there. I always picked Chung May's for my birthday night dinner. Later, when I was in high school, one of the boys from the Asian family who owned Chung May's was our drum major. Since I was a majorette, I got to know him pretty well and had a big-time crush on him. All these years later, Chinese food is still my favorite, just a tad above Mexican and Pizza. Hmm. I guess we are what we come from after all.
Well, the air-conditioning man has just pulled up to the curb, thank God! Memories of days without a/c are fun but I'm glad they're just memories. I would rather belong to the good-old days of NOW with cold air blowing in every room.
Onward!
