The heat is on

A terrible calamity struck my house this week – the air conditioning went on the fritz.

Since my house was apparently built by the first little pig, I’ve gotten used to having an annual major repair. Toilets, floors, walls, appliances, siding – I need an Obama stimulus package to take care of everything that needs attention around there.

But some repairs can’t wait, and a non-performing AC unit is at the top of that list. It’s not the first problem we’ve had with it, and my daughter asked me the other day why it always seems to quit working when it’s hot.

“Because, dear,” I said, remembering that I’m paying for her to go to college, “that’s when we use it. When it’s hot.”

My wife informed me that not having a working AC unit is a hardship on her, because it makes her hair frizz. My son hasn’t really complained, because he’s 17 years old and doesn’t talk to us except in case of emergency. The dog has said nothing, but she lives outside and isn’t really affected.

Anyway, I called a repairman, and for the price of a small Volkswagen, it is going to be repaired, and peace will again descend upon my household. The whole episode has served to remind me how spoiled we’ve all become.

Of course, when I was a boy, we didn’t live in 72-degree comfort from June through September. We didn’t have central air conditioning in our ranch-style house, just a couple of window units that rattled like a 747 on takeoff, and made about as much noise. These only ran at certain times - for example, when my father was at home.

Rooms that were deemed unnecessary to cool – i.e., my bedroom – were cut off from the cool air via a closed door. When I’d step from my bedroom into the hall, it was about a 20-degree temperature drop. It’s a wonder I didn’t die of pneumonia at the age of 10.

At night, the air conditioning was turned off completely, so I slept with the windows open on summer evenings. I could hear the chirp of crickets, the croak of bullfrogs, the far-off whistle of the train, and occasional arguments from the next-door neighbors. I learned some new curse words through that open window.

When I was about 15, we moved to a house that had central air conditioning, which would have been great had we ever used it. Instead, my dad installed a ceiling fan, which circulated air throughout the house. That sounds good in theory, but 85-degree air wafting over you at night is not terribly comfortable.

No, if you wanted to get cool in that house, you just had to wait for the winter. The house also had central heat, but he preferred to use a wood-burning stove. That thing required wood, which had to be chopped into smaller pieces, then stacked, then brought into the house. Who is going to do that, I asked my dad, and he responded by smiling and handing me an axe.

“Are you crazy?” I said. “What am I, Davy Crockett?”

OK, I didn’t really say that, I just thought it to myself. I learned how to chop, stack and carry wood, all while repeating the curse words I’d learned through the open window at my old house.

The wood-burning stove was something. If you were within, say, 10 feet of it, it was as warm as Lucifer’s kitchen. Again, my dad would close off the bedrooms, so none of that warmth reached me at night. Walking through that house in the winter was like going to visit the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser every day (that joke was for fans of The Year Without a Santa Claus).

After I moved out on my own, I couldn't help but notice when I came back to visit that my dad had at last embraced the notions of central heating and air, and the house was always at a nice, comfortable temperature. I guess he was just trying to make sure I wasn’t spoiled.