The
other day, late in the afternoon, a 91-degree day,
my
air conditioner went out. I called the apartment
management,
and they put in a work order to main-
tenance.
No
one showed up by 7 PM, and then I figured at
this
hour no one would. The stand-by emergency guy
called
me back and told me that he wasn’t an air con-
ditioner
specialist, and that it would be sometime to-
morrow
before anyone could service me.
So,
I resigned myself to sleeping in the heat of the night.
I
thought about my childhood in St. Louis. Summer nights
could
be steaming hot with temps above 80 degrees with
humidity
reading of 80 or 90 percent, a real uncomfortable
sweat-bath
trying to sleep .
And
of course, no household air back then, not even a fan
for
my brothers and me. We were not poor, and my parents
could
have afforded to buy a fan or two, but they never did.
Back
in those days people didn’t give it a second thought.
It’s
summer and you slept with no covers, with the windows
open,
hopefully with a slight natural cross-ventilation, which
was
never the case at our place.
Tossing
and turning in your own sweat, falling asleep occa-
sionally,
and awakening several times during the night.
These
days, air conditioners are a necessity rather than a
luxury.
And rich or poor, a damn good fan would be a given
in
the sweltering Midwestern summer heat.
Why
hell, nowadays if a person wanted a Ferrari or a
5000--square
foot home, they could go out and buy it
even
if they couldn’t afford to.
I’m
disabled and have no transportation anyway, so a trip
to
the hardware store was not possible given my situation.
Be
that as it may, I had no remedy for sleeping at night in
the
summer heat. No air, no fan, covers off and down at
the
bottom of my sweat-soaked sheet.
Had
I a Ferrari, though, I would have gladly traded it for
some
cooler air.
-30-
Chris
Hanch 6-17-2020
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