EVAPORATION

LIVING DOWN SOUTH

When I was yet a boy, my parents told me of my strange behavior during the night. I could find no humor, in this mirthfully-told tale. I had been a notorious bed-wetter, but was in the next phase of my development. It was one of those humid summer nights, in Atlanta, Georgia. I was not a sleep-walker, like my maternal-cousin, Robbie. I'd gotten-up in the middle of the night[what were these two jokers doing awake?] to relieve myself. I had turned the wrong way, when I came to the end of our bed[still sleeping with my baby-sister]. I had walked to the powerful electric-fan, pointed up toward the ceiling. They said that when my little legs collided with this appliance, I'd pulled down my pajama-pants, and peed into the torrent of swirling air. I was sprayed with my own warm urine.

This old fan, carefully-painted a metallic mint-green, was one of three that the family 'owned.' There had been perhaps thirty of them, that got 'retired,' when they had 'air-conditioned' the Municipal Auditorium complex, on Courtland, at Gilmer, downtown. In Grandpappy's workshop, behind the family home, at 481 Clifton Road, my Dad had designed/built wooden floor-stands, with plastic-casters, for the three huge electric fans. Grandpappy had put new electric-cords on them, and repaired the pull-switches, with new pop-bead pull-chains. While the covers were off, they had 'serviced' the well-built motors. When the rolling-stands were firmly-attached, they hand-painted them to match, with 'retired' paint[used to spruce-up them old fans, when they were still in service]. Grandpappy kept one for cooling his house, and Dad brought two of them home to us.

I saw a picture of my Father, on the front page of the Atlanta Journal[Ralph McGill-days], with one of those very fans, high on a support-column, bracketed to aim down at audience-members. The article, was front-page-news, because the Municipal Arena could now compete with those COOL movie theaters; the addition of a new cooling-system, that efficiently cooled the entire complex, was a long-time-coming in the hot/humid Southland.

The 'technology' used to chill the huge space was hardly new; it was not even novel, because of its size. Other downtown office-buildings had cooling towers on their roof, or behind vents on its top-floor; any 'new' construction had designed-in cooling systems; even in Alaska, they were building air-conditioned government buildings. After a cool night at the Fox, with stars twinkling overhead, who would pay good hard-earned money, to sit crowded in with 2500 sweating patrons, while huge fans forced hot air through your new hair-do?  ...and you are still sweating; staining that Paris-fashion you bought at Rich's; ruining it forever!