Before and After A/C

Did you know this? “In 1945 a man named Robert Sherman of Lynn, MA, invented the portable, in-window air conditioner that cooled and heated, humidified and dehumidified, and filtered the air (Patent # 2,433,960 granted January 6, 1948). It was subsequently stolen by a large manufacturer. Sherman did not have the resources to fight the big corporation in court—they promised to "break him" if he tried - and thus never received any money or recognition. He died in 1962.” 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning

I came across this bit of information as the result of spending two hours, (not by choice,) in an upstairs un-air conditioned room this afternoon where the temperature was about 90 degrees F. My writing pad goes with me on occasions when I know I’ll be waiting without something to do, so I wrote another blog to kill time in captivity suffering the heat, but when I read about Mr. Sherman my heart went out to him and I decided my complaint was minuscule compared to what that man endured. That made me hot under the collar and if the article had mentioned the name of the “big corporation” I’d gladly boycott it!

I remember that as a child I was blissfully too occupied with other things than to pay much attention to temperature, even in those hot sticky summer days and the deep dip temps of winter in our Minnesota country home. In my teens and older I joined the popular habit of noticing extremes in temperature and complaining about them. 

When I married in 1945 (the year poor Mr. Sherman invented his in-window air conditioner,) Wally was a captain in the Marines and one of our first homes was a Quonset hut on the air base in the Mojave desert. We kept deliciously cool, in what might have been unbearable heat, by a water cooler in the window. That was a far more simple apparatus than the window air conditioner but it worked almost as well in that dry climate.

The first house we actually owned was in a brand new development in North Carolina near the Cherry Point Marine Air Base. It was a prefabricated three bedroom bungalow with white siding and blue shutters. (As cute as all the others that looked exactly like it.) It had not only my first dishwasher but an air conditioner! With an FHA loan we moved in with nothing down and payments of $64.00 a month. The cost? $10,000. We sold it 2 years later for $11,500., a tidy little sum at the time.

(I apologize to my readers for rambling. Can’t help it, even though one of my writing teachers said, “Stick to your thesis and don’t stray from it with your favorite side tidbits. You’ve got to murder those little darlings!”)

Let’s see,..the thesis is air conditioning past and present in the life of Yours Truly. 

In about 1955 we got a flat tire in Death Valley on one of our moves across country. I think  the temperature was about 118 degrees!  The next car we bought just had to have an air conditioner. 

I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy air conditioning everywhere I’ve lived since about 1950 except in the house on our ranch in Oregon. When it was too hot in our upstairs bedroom at night we’d make up cots to put beside the huge redwood tree in our front yard. Even air conditioning couldn’t beat the beauty of a night under the Milky Way!

Now, in my present condo, I stay fairly cool without the A/C, but when I need it, it’s there and, incidentally, I’m glad to be home now enjoying it! In my old age am I not allowed to be spoiled? 

Remember When?

Whenever I have a malted milk shake I remember my first one. I always do. I was with my mother and I must have been around eight or nine then. We were at a soda fountain sitting on tall stools by a white marble counter in an ice cream parlor in the city of Rochester, MN a city 35 miles from our country home. (Mother was on one of her visits to the Mayo Clinic, but that’s another story.) Mother ordered malted milks for the two of us. Nothing else, though it was to be our noon lunch. The whole thing was new to me. I never, and I mean never, went out to eat except for dinners at my cousins’ or grandparents’ homes. Never to public places, even in our small hometown.

“Will that be all?” the young man behind the counter asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Mother replied.

“That’s all?” I said. (Why is it that children's voices carry so loudly?)

I saw Mother in the huge mirror across the bar. She winced, then bent down to say softly to me, “You’ll see, it will be more than you can finish, dear.” 

“No!” Pointing to a sign I insisted, “I want a sandwich too, like the one on that sign!” The answer was no and I thought for a minute she was going to grab my hand and go out.  It was one of my cranky spells. I argued more. Embarrassed her, no doubt. (It’s something I regret and would gladly erase from my story if I could because Mother was not long for the world then.)  

But, as I said, that was my first taste of a real malted milk shake and it was absolutely delicious! A new flavor and one I’d never forget. Not like the malted milks you get today. A tall glass twice the size of today’s version, filled to the brim, and the metal container it had been made in contained an almost equal amount. The waiter set them both down in front of me with a broad smile to Mother. He’d heard our discussion and was no doubt in sympathy with her. Mother was right. Sure enough, I couldn’t finish the milk shake. Afterward, outside, I should have had a scolding but I didn't.

No milk shakes I’ve ever had since can measure up to that first malted milk. I rarely order them because they're always a disappointment. Like today when Katie and I went shopping and stopped to get milk shakes to drink in the car. We found a place to park under a bower of trees in Ralph’s parking lot. It was shady and cool there, a spot next to the tree-lined street and across from a greenbelt. Not strange territory but neither was it a place we’d spent any time in before. Grocery store parking lots mean getting in and out and that’s about it.

“I can almost imagine us on a car trip somewhere,” I said to Katie. “It’s nice here.” The malt was the usual, cold and smooth, but not malty enough, even though I'd asked to double the malt but  it got me to start this blog about things we oldsters remember that you youngsters don't. 

I made a list of things no longer present in today’s world, at least not in this country, save those rare places where time got stuck and hardly any outsiders go. 

Here are some of my remember whens.

Remember when cars needed to be started with a hand crank by the driver or someone standing in front of the front bumper? Occasionally someone's wrist got broken that way or if the driver had left the car in gear he could have run himself over. And whatever happened to rumble seats and running boards?

  

Remember when gas stations were called “service stations” and that meant someone would come out, greet you and ask how many gallons to put in? He, (never a she,) would also raise the hood and check the oil, the radiator water, check the fan belt and whatever, then close the lid. He’d also wash the windshield, the side windows and the rear window, check your tires and ask if there was anything else you’d like him to do. Then he’d collect your money, give you change from one of those gadgets that hang from the belt, then maybe chat a bit, give you directions, and wave goodbye with a cheery “Good to see you! Come again!” (I know all about that, my dad owned a country gas station and our home was right on the property.)

Remember when little girls were taught to be “ladylike” and carry a handkerchief in a little purse and wear hats and gloves to church? Nowadays even the term "lady" is considered politically incorrect.

Remember when a nickel would buy a candy bar or a bottle of soda pop and you could buy as little as one or two pieces of candy or a licorice stick for a penny?

Remember when little boys were allowed to have paper routes and could do chores for neighbors to collect money? Even girls as young as fourteen could be hired out as live-in house maids and nannies. We had one off and on and she was happy to get the going rate, room and board and $4.00 a week to take home to her parents on her one day off.

Remember when elevators anywhere, not just in high class hotels, had operators who wore smart uniforms? For some time it was my ambition to get a job like that when I grew up. 

Remember when farm kitchens had a daybed for Grandpa to rest on after the noon dinner? (I never saw Grandma on it. The only time Grandma sat down was to darn socks or crochet in her rocking chair.)

Remember when barbers advertised, “Shave and a haircut, six bits?” A bit was 25 cents, so you see that six bits was rather a lot in its day.

Remember when the word Darn! was the worst swear word you ever heard of and even it you were not allowed to say?

I could go on, but if you’re anywhere near my age you’ll no doubt think of other Remember Whens. Younger folks than I might remember when McDonald’s advertised on the Golden Arches that they’d sold 14,000,000 hamburgers! And those burgers were 14 cents! Also, some might remember the Burma Shave signs on highways. My favorite one was this:

“Don’t stick your elbow 

out too far

It might go home

In another car!”

Here’s another:

“Although insured

Remember, brother,

They don’t pay you

They pay your mother.”

Do you think the youngsters of today will look back on us and laugh that we ever had to have pilots to fly airplanes, drivers to drive cars? Well, you can carry on. This blog is over. I keep remembering more, like beating rugs over a clothes line when there was no vacuum cleaner and riding in a buck board wagon with Grandpa to "The Other Place." You heard about that. And now this blog is over! 

Where Little Lights Play

When we read a writer’s thoughts we seldom see where he or she sat as the words first hit the page. To me, that would complete the picture and enhance the idea. My writer friend would be more than his or her thoughts; he’d be a person in whom I could feel more connection. Yet, even as I say this I rather doubt that my readers would feel they know me better if they could see me here on my patio in robe and slippers sans make-up or combed hair. Sometimes we can, in the flesh, be a distraction to our words.

If I could share with you the little light show I’m enjoying, the playful sparkles of sunlight on the creek where it bends out of sight, if you could drift with me into musings that rise to the sun bursting through the tall trees and sending out brilliant threads of itself, then I think you might feel closer. 

Here in the cool of a morning can’t you see why some ancients would want to worship the sun? They understood the obvious, that none of our earthly joys could exist without our sun. Everything here on this little orb depends on old Sol. He is too brilliant to view with the naked eye but we see exact replicas of him in many places. I see them on rear windows of cars ahead of me at the stop light. I see them on bumpers, on fenders, on smooth surfaces everywhere. Little lights play and cavort in strange places, but never stay. Here on my patio I see the sun peeking through the trees begging me to look at it but I can’t for long. Instead I watch how its rays play on the shingled walls of my house, how they sneak into the kitchen window and invade the bird’s cage to touch Tommy's tail feathers. Those dancing lights on the water's ripples at the bend of the creek send sparkles of joy into my soul. 

Of all the pleasures of getting older I can think of none that I enjoy more than the grace to sit still and toy with thoughts like those little lights dancing on the water. It may be a grace that younger people know too, especially babies. If we've aged enough to find stillness and solitude in beauty and gladness instead of sinking into the dark depths of pain and sorrow we know what it means to get better as we get older. It even allows us to see our own halos in the mirror of Mind. Wow!

I could stay here all day and may, indeed, come out again to sit and ponder, to read and reflect, but for now I’ll head on into the house, get dressed and do what needs to be done to the house. My daily tasks might seem more pleasant if I would see myself at play with all the other women (and some men) who have to make home sweet, clean and comfortable. Just think, gang, we’re little lights playing on the waters of life and reflecting the great Sun we cannot look at but without whom we would never be! We can’t see each other, but we’re here together, lighting our paths one way or another and sharing our own unique take on what life is all about. Thinking of you makes housework playtime! And getting older? Who cares? There's beauty in that if we grab it and run!

I Do Faces

“What are you going to do when you grow up?” Children must get weary of the question. For one thing, how can any child know? Children are not fortune tellers. Oh, yes, I’ve heard of some children who know what they’ll do and stick to it but I was not one of them. Another thing, just when is anyone “grown-up”? I feel like a child even now and it surprises me to see photographs of myself. That’s me? No way! Still, pictures don’t lie, the saying goes. Tell that to anyone who just saw his picture on a new driver’s license.

When I was a child and people would ask me what I planned to do when I grew up I did know this much, that I wanted to be an artist of some sort. When I discovered the thrill of finding faces in clay I finally knew but I got sidetracked, moved to Minnesota, to my old home town, and built my dream house. I named it DONE RAMBLING. My dream house got sold when I got married the second time. The little downstairs studio where I had a work bench and kiln got left behind. The rambler in me wasn’t done after all. 

At last I’m getting back to doing faces. So far the market for them has not opened up, although they are in a gallery. This doesn’t worry me. When it does I’ll be obliged to go on and now I do faces for the right reason, the love of it. Remember Shakespeare a few blogs ago? Well, I couldn’t recover him. It just didn’t work, but I did salvage half his face and the other half, the new half, turned him into a Lawrence of Arabia kind of fellow. When he’s done I’ll show you. 

Nowadays my studio is wherever I can find a chair and set up a tray table. Trouble is I need to keep house but when I sculpt I let the house go and eventually I must give up doing faces long enough to get the house in order. Every blank day on the calendar promises that, but then I find myself blogging. Blogging is something like sculpting. It’s neater, however. A blog starts with an idea like What am I going to do today? Then it ends up like this. Nothing much said so I try to find a deeper element in it. 

Today’s blog makes me wonder about the faces of the ones who will read it. I’d love to look at your faces, visit with you, watch the play of light in your eyes and know what lies behind them. Faces tell so much about  people yet my clay faces look like they’re holding back even more. Behind them are unknown histories. It’s a shock to realize they have none. Or do they? I call them “Old Souls” because they could be just that. People who have lived somewhere in the forgotten past and people who have taken their memories with them. I record some of my memories in my blogs. Still they, too, tell so little. 

And so little does my own face tell as well. One thing is for certain, I’ll probably never stop doing faces. Unlike when I was a child and told not to stare at people, I can stare at my faces all day long. Especially when they're coming out of the clay. I'm feeling that magnetic pull to the tray table, but no! Housecleaning, you win. 

Timepieces Don't Tell

Is there anything more arbitrary than time? It dictates our lives regardless of our attention to it. And it comes encased in timepieces of countless sizes, shapes and mechanisms. I got to thinking of that this morning and remembering how my first desire for a thing other than food, affection, etc. was for a wrist watch. I’m told that before I could pronounce it properly (I called it a “rich ratch”) I begged for one. I remember pouring through each new issue of the huge Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogues to choose my favorite wrist watch. Not until I was twelve did I get one. It was exactly the one I’d chosen from the catalogue, with a silver mesh band. You’d think an object so desired and so thrilling to receive as that would have survived the ravages of the thing called time that it was made to record but I have no idea whatever happened to it.

Nowadays I wear a wrist watch that serves its purpose but is of little value monetarily and even cosmetically. I simply don’t care as long as it does its job. I have a National Geographic radio operated atomic clock, a Colonial grandfather clock set to chime the Westminster tune every quarter hour, and a whimsical metal clock shaped like a bicycle with the clock serving as the front wheel. There’s a digital clock in my bedroom that gives me the time in big red digits all hours of the day and night. And, of course, the time is displayed on my kitchen stove, the television set, on my cell phone and computer.

Now where is this blog going? you might ask. I’m beginning to see. It has to do with getting older. Can anyone tell me why time should affect one’s health and well-being as time does? Timepieces don’t tell. Nothing can be quite so impersonal than the time of day on the face of a clock. Yet all our lives we live by it. More or less. 

Can there be, is there, a higher dimension where time disappears? I think in a way that we’re living in it right now when we consider that there’s no other certainty than an ever present now. We cannot hang onto a second or hasten another second. We can use this minute in some constructive way or we can let it slip by unimproved and wasted. Sixty consecutive “nows” in an hour go by and what have we to show for them? That’s the challenge of being alive. What we think and what we do in this ever-present Now are the two most influential elements of our personal lives. 

A timepiece is useful, often beautiful, and a tool in learning to become punctual. The sturdy round wall clock next to the portrait of George Washington in my first grade classroom used to tick loudly during arithmetic time tests. It also had something to do with the alarm that announced the end of a period in class. I’m glad to be done with school other than the one we can’t escape called Experience. I’ll never in this life be done entirely with timepieces, I hope, for if I escape them entirely it will mean I’ve given up control of my own will. However, if I’ve given up my will for the sense of God’s will being done? That must be the best timepiece yet. 

Do you suppose God is bound to timepieces? I doubt it. Does eternity depend on measurement of time or is it an endless Now that has no beginning? When you’re in your advancing years you get to sit and ponder things like that. If you’re independent, that is. To stay independent to some extent is good. To keep up mentally is even better. I look at the faces of my clocks and smile. They serve me, but I don’t serve them, except to wind the grandfather and keep fresh batteries in the others. 

Some people take great pride in their wristwatches and spend thousands of dollars for the names that they bear. A little Timex is good enough for me but I’m not giving away old grandy or the handsome atomic National Geographic yet. The bicycle clock makes me smile. Its symbolism keeps rolling on with the times. And now I must get dressed for the day and see what I can make of it. I’ll not be watching the clock much today because my calendar has not a single notation on it. Now that’s my favorite kind of day! 

Dear Readers, Let's all have a great and good day, a beautiful Now!  

Something Worth Writing About

Something that’s common and peculiarly appealing to each one of us can be worth reading or writing about.  I think the subject of getting older and better makes a good topic these days. People are generally interested in age (everybody’s got one) and getting better with it is a new twist.  Anyone can put a positive spin on age if they’re willing to buck the crowd of naysayers.

I maintain that looking away from the body would keep us healthier, more youthful, intellectual and happy than wading through all the theories presented in the media and their promises to make you look younger. Most of them focus on serving the body in order for it to serve them by being better looking, healthier and the like. The mind-body thinkers might say that's getting the cart before the horse. Which do you think deserves the more attention? The "cart" can be useful and needs to be kept in good repair but it's the "horse" that empowers the cart, not the other way around. Incidentally, I wonder how so many of my ancestors lived to a ripe old age so gracefully without all the hoopla about "fitness" we hear today. 

 These ancestors of mine had their trials and sorrows but they got through them without therapy and mind-dumbing pills. A focus on life and living it well was their answer, plus an earnest heartfelt on-the-knees-prayer every night. They thought less about their bodies and more about getting the work done. They didn't go to beauty salons or gyms. They didn't even have bathtubs in order to keep themselves clean. A pot of warm water, a bar of soap and a wash bowl on a stand in the bedroom worked. They lived sensibly without special diets. They fed hunger, not appetite. Their focus each day was more on being useful than on glorifying the body. 

If one’s body is a reflection of thought, then the improvement of our thoughts should be foremost in the improvement of our bodies. Thoughts and beliefs tend to be self-fulfilling. They show up on the face and body in sickness or in health. So it is with aging. If the subject is disregarded altogether there could be less aging in its negative connotations. I have an idea that if every one of us would think outside the body box and address mental and meaningful objectives we’d find life more satisfying and fruitful. We'd accomplish more and worry less. We'd even find more that is worth writing and reading about. 

Writing on the subject of getting better as we age has been a challenge for me at times since I started this blog, but I'm not giving up. I’ve found that the simple task of picking up a pen and pad or sitting down to a keyboard and letting words spill out is as good a teacher as I can find. Of course, I'll avail myself of the best things to read also. Other people’s theories can be helpful and I can soon tell if they're not. Our own perusal of any given subject just by quiet meditation on it can unearth inner treasures we never dreamed of. When we gather this wisdom and put it into words we’ll be led to do some surprisingly good writing and reading.

Writing daily in a journal or just a lined notebook can be the catalyst for wisdom and knowledge on any subject and if we follow our interests with open minds we can find our happy healthy selves hovering somewhere above the drama of our daily lives. One of my early writing teachers called that higher selfhood our Muse. You and your Muse have something worth writing about, and it may turn out to be worth reading too.  So put your pen to paper and your fingers on the keypad. See what happens. Like me, after years of journaling you'll keep learning and writing and then? Welcome to the world of blogging!

(Apologies to you readers out there who are way ahead of me! As you see, I'm still learning from my Muse.)

"It Works"

I bought an old lamp the other day. It’s a table lamp. Stands about two and a half feet tall but has a narrow base. It’s in mint condition and it’s got style. A small tag on it next to the price said "It Works." I found it in a thrift shop so it came with a history, albeit a blind one. It had no shade but the one on my old table lamp does nicely and it looks quite handsome on the table next to my reading chair. The old lamp whose place it took was too low. This one is perfect.

“It works” is a good recommendation for anything and the words got me to thinking how they pertain to me. “Works” is not a passive verb. It means any number of things. In my case it means that I keep house, drive a car, sculpt faces, play the piano, sing, read, do laundry, shop, serve in a Reading Room and as usher in church, and write blogs. I am speaking loosely when I mention playing the piano, because I should have tagged the word “infrequently” onto that and “not too well” would be even more honest. You’ll notice I didn’t say that I cook. I’ve gladly retired from cooking now that I have no one but myself to cook for. Well, bacon and eggs for breakfast now and then or a sandwich or packaged meal, but nothing fancy and almost never for company. Although it’s an extravagance, I eat out whenever I have someone to do it with. All that said, I can say of myself, "She works."

My main working projects these days are sculpting and blogging, if you call these working, that is. I call them play and, like Robert Frost, I see work and play as “two eyes ... one in sight,” a perfect combination. Sometimes the work is easy and occasionally it’s hard. In the past two days I worked on two sculpting projects. The first one came so easily I saw him with the first pinch in the clay. He turned out to be a young fellow with an engaging smile wearing an Austrian hat. I’m delighted with him. The other work is made from something called Sculpy,” a new modeling substitute for clay that is not as messy, stays moist and can be fired in my kitchen oven. I’m not used to it and probably won’t go on trying. The face that came out of it is not yet finished even after working all day on it. A young mother with her new baby’s face pressed to her cheek. She has the spirit of new mother love but when I try to smooth out her cheek or re-focus her eye something happens and I lose that spirit. She’s just a lump of clay again. 

I can stay focused on something like that for hours on end because, I imagine, it’s something like midwifery. Someone is in need of getting out, urgently but some births are slower than others. I must be patient, thoughtful, get myself out of the way and gently help the process along. Once I think I’ve got it I lay it aside but then go back to fix up some little thing and boom! I’ve sabotaged the work and must do some repairs to get back that look of mother love. 

Sculpting is a patient, meditative work, yet exciting at times. Blogging, on the other hand, is a more communicative activity. Neither of the two require the engagement of anyone else, although it’s more fun to have it. I was at the gallery yesterday sculpting on the front porch. Our gallery’s owner likes to have the artists at work on the property and whenever Robin serves at the desk I enjoy porch sitting with a lump of clay. A man came and sat down in the other chair next to me. His party went in but he was not interested in doing anything but resting his feet. Soon we got to talking. He was from North Carolina and, since I’d lived there myself for a couple of two year tours of duty with Wally at the Cherry Point Marine base, we talked about that for a while. The train rumbled by across the lot opposite the cottage and when it passed we talked about how fun it is to travel that way. People milled in and out and when he took a look at my work I asked him if he’d like to see more of it. “Yes, I would!” he said and practically leapt from the chair.  

Inside there was quite a crowd so I showed him my spot and left him in the little room. Robin was hurrying me. "We need to leave now, Mom, because I'm not supposed to park on the street." So I got my porch studio packed up and when I went back in the gallery I saw that my man’s party was in the room talking about my work. I had to say a hasty goodbye. I was sorry, yet not sorry. I'm shy about selling and if I’d stayed they might have bought something out of pity for me. I didn’t want that. Yet rushing off was not good either. I’m curious. Did they become my first buyers? I’ll find out eventually. 

In both my principal activities, blogging and sculpting, there’s an element of communication. In both, I can be communicating with myself only. If someone else likes my work I suppose you could say. “It works.” Does that mean they have to buy it? I don’t think so. I’d like to think of myself as a working person without a boss and having no pressing need to get others to see or buy my work. My income is sufficient but I'd like to be able to cover the rent in the gallery and supplies and transportation expenses. That much seems fitting.

The new-old lamp works just fine. Blogging too. When someone says, “I love your blogs,” or “Your Old Souls are great,” does that mean I’ve worked or played? Do I need someone to lay down cold cash for the things I’ve done in order to say they work? I’m letting the question hang in the air, but I think I know the answer. Money has little to do with it. If it pleases someone, especially the one working at it, that’s good enough in my book to say "it works." Even if that someone is me.