It was as hot as hell in Atlanta today. No surprise there, but it has been above 90 degrees every day since sometime in May. That's pretty relentless, even for Atlanta.
I opened the door to let Coqui out for her evening relief and a blast of hot, humid air smacked me between the eyes with a damp whomp. I quickly closed the door and retreated into my 77-degree environment, thanking the genius who invented air conditioning. According to Wikipedia, it was an American, Willis Haviland Carrier in 1902. That would explain the ubiquitous appearance of that brand name on condensers throughout the land.
The next thing I knew I was traipsing down the lane called Memory, thinking about how we ever managed to survive without Mr. Carrier’s contribution. And that’s when I felt the need to see that porch, the wide expanse of wood and metal chairs where suffocating July evenings would be spent eavesdropping on “grown-up conversations.” I wanted to see the place in my Illinois hometown again, where all those memories were begotten.
When I Googled the address I was shocked to see the very first image was from Zillow.com, the on-line real estate site. The side-by-side two-story duplex was barely recognizable to me. The pristine white enamel paint it wore from the time it was built in 1940 has been replaced by some ugly,
faux-stone siding. And the house has shrunk! The house I remember with my 1950s eyes seemed enormous, one of the biggest houses on the block. The one in this picture is…well, dinky-looking.
Zillow has the house listed as condos selling for $133,000. It isn’t clear if that is for one or both sides of the building, but I suspect it is for both, given the condition of the general neighborhood these days. My grandparents paid $7,000 for it in 1948, I believe, and allowed my uncle’s family to occupy the right-hand side. Sheer organdy curtains made the windows seem much wider than they appear in the photo. Or maybe it’s just those 1950s eyes of mine again.
Every night after we sat down to supper at 6 p.m. sharp, everybody would pitch in to clear the table and get the dishes done so we could escape the hot kitchen and retire to the equally hot front porch, hoping to “catch a little breeze.” On the rare occasions when Grandpa wasn’t “in his cups,” he would sit in His chair on the far left and literally twiddle his thumbs. Every now and then he would grumble about some “cowboy” driving too fast down our street.
But on most nights he had a snoot full, as Granny used to say, and he would be hilarious. Instead of grunting at the cowboys, he would yell at them or whistle that piercing sound men get when they use their thumb and forefinger as instruments. Granny would reach over from Her chair and tap him gently on the elbow, hoping to shush him. It never worked.
Then there was my friend Betty’s big sister, Rosalie. She was a teenager, much older than we were and she spent a lot of time walking up and down the street. She had the most bodacious behind of any woman in town, and when she walked it did all sorts of tricks.
Grandpa would stage-whisper “Here comes Flutter Butt!” We would all get quiet in order to hear what sounds he would emit as she switched and swiveled her way past our house.
“Hee, hee, hee,” he would say in a weird falsetto voice. “Looks like two basketballs in a pillowcase fighting for space.” Once again, Granny’s right hand would flick his arm. “Stop hitting me, woman. I’m busy. Hee, hee, hee.”
We kids would giggle and titter like the silly people we were supposed to be at that age. Then I would get up, after I was sure Rosalie was all the way past the house, and try to imitate her fluttery derriere.
By now I am dripping with sweat and feeling a little sick.
“What’s the matter Punkin? The heat got ya?”
I have never done well in humidity. It gives me a pounding headache and I sweat like a pig from the simple act of breathing. The only thing that revived me back then was the sound of the ice cream boy, jangling those three bells on the front of his pedaled cart, cooled inside with dry ice. I’d listen, without turning from my perch on the stairs, for the sound of clinking change coming from Grandpa’s direction. He was always good for a Popsicle, especially when the heat had me.
As the sun went all the way down and the lightning bugs started blinking, I would stay as quiet as I could so as not to remind the adults of the time. Going to bed on a night like that was the worst. Even with the giant box fan droning at the highest speed, the sheets felt like they had been washed and put on the bed wet. Despite my mother’s belief that I would catch cold if I allowed the fan to blow directly on me, I would turn it in my direction as soon as she left the room. Every few minutes I would toss and turn until I found a spot on the bed that was only damp and not yet soaked with my sweat. I was miserable.
Sometimes we would all be driven inside by the mosquito truck. The canopy of elm trees that graced our avenue back then was a haven for voracious blood-suckers, so the village sprayed the trees and shrubbery with DDT periodically. People and pets were not supposed to breathe that smelly chemical cloud, so we would have to endure the convection oven that was our house.
It really sounds horrible, I know, but it didn’t feel that way then. I loved those nightly porch gatherings. Sometimes the neighbors would stop to chat on the way to the corner butcher shop or the drugstore on the other corner. After they left one of the grown-ups would invariably have something to say about them. They would spell words like p-r-e-g-n-a- n-t and s-e-x, and I wouldn’t let on that I knew exactly what they were spelling. I felt so mature.
Once in a while, though, Grandpa would have had a few too many and pick a fight with Granny. Those nights weren’t fun at all, because all the grownups would act all disgusted and go to their respective sides of the house, leaving us out there by ourselves. We’d have to amuse ourselves by catching lightning bugs and making lanterns out of Mason jars with holes in the tops. We had to pretend we didn't know.
I opened the door to let Coqui out for her evening relief and a blast of hot, humid air smacked me between the eyes with a damp whomp. I quickly closed the door and retreated into my 77-degree environment, thanking the genius who invented air conditioning. According to Wikipedia, it was an American, Willis Haviland Carrier in 1902. That would explain the ubiquitous appearance of that brand name on condensers throughout the land.
The next thing I knew I was traipsing down the lane called Memory, thinking about how we ever managed to survive without Mr. Carrier’s contribution. And that’s when I felt the need to see that porch, the wide expanse of wood and metal chairs where suffocating July evenings would be spent eavesdropping on “grown-up conversations.” I wanted to see the place in my Illinois hometown again, where all those memories were begotten.
When I Googled the address I was shocked to see the very first image was from Zillow.com, the on-line real estate site. The side-by-side two-story duplex was barely recognizable to me. The pristine white enamel paint it wore from the time it was built in 1940 has been replaced by some ugly,
faux-stone siding. And the house has shrunk! The house I remember with my 1950s eyes seemed enormous, one of the biggest houses on the block. The one in this picture is…well, dinky-looking. Zillow has the house listed as condos selling for $133,000. It isn’t clear if that is for one or both sides of the building, but I suspect it is for both, given the condition of the general neighborhood these days. My grandparents paid $7,000 for it in 1948, I believe, and allowed my uncle’s family to occupy the right-hand side. Sheer organdy curtains made the windows seem much wider than they appear in the photo. Or maybe it’s just those 1950s eyes of mine again.
Every night after we sat down to supper at 6 p.m. sharp, everybody would pitch in to clear the table and get the dishes done so we could escape the hot kitchen and retire to the equally hot front porch, hoping to “catch a little breeze.” On the rare occasions when Grandpa wasn’t “in his cups,” he would sit in His chair on the far left and literally twiddle his thumbs. Every now and then he would grumble about some “cowboy” driving too fast down our street.
But on most nights he had a snoot full, as Granny used to say, and he would be hilarious. Instead of grunting at the cowboys, he would yell at them or whistle that piercing sound men get when they use their thumb and forefinger as instruments. Granny would reach over from Her chair and tap him gently on the elbow, hoping to shush him. It never worked.
Then there was my friend Betty’s big sister, Rosalie. She was a teenager, much older than we were and she spent a lot of time walking up and down the street. She had the most bodacious behind of any woman in town, and when she walked it did all sorts of tricks.
Grandpa would stage-whisper “Here comes Flutter Butt!” We would all get quiet in order to hear what sounds he would emit as she switched and swiveled her way past our house.
“Hee, hee, hee,” he would say in a weird falsetto voice. “Looks like two basketballs in a pillowcase fighting for space.” Once again, Granny’s right hand would flick his arm. “Stop hitting me, woman. I’m busy. Hee, hee, hee.”
We kids would giggle and titter like the silly people we were supposed to be at that age. Then I would get up, after I was sure Rosalie was all the way past the house, and try to imitate her fluttery derriere.
By now I am dripping with sweat and feeling a little sick.
“What’s the matter Punkin? The heat got ya?”
I have never done well in humidity. It gives me a pounding headache and I sweat like a pig from the simple act of breathing. The only thing that revived me back then was the sound of the ice cream boy, jangling those three bells on the front of his pedaled cart, cooled inside with dry ice. I’d listen, without turning from my perch on the stairs, for the sound of clinking change coming from Grandpa’s direction. He was always good for a Popsicle, especially when the heat had me.
As the sun went all the way down and the lightning bugs started blinking, I would stay as quiet as I could so as not to remind the adults of the time. Going to bed on a night like that was the worst. Even with the giant box fan droning at the highest speed, the sheets felt like they had been washed and put on the bed wet. Despite my mother’s belief that I would catch cold if I allowed the fan to blow directly on me, I would turn it in my direction as soon as she left the room. Every few minutes I would toss and turn until I found a spot on the bed that was only damp and not yet soaked with my sweat. I was miserable.
Sometimes we would all be driven inside by the mosquito truck. The canopy of elm trees that graced our avenue back then was a haven for voracious blood-suckers, so the village sprayed the trees and shrubbery with DDT periodically. People and pets were not supposed to breathe that smelly chemical cloud, so we would have to endure the convection oven that was our house.
It really sounds horrible, I know, but it didn’t feel that way then. I loved those nightly porch gatherings. Sometimes the neighbors would stop to chat on the way to the corner butcher shop or the drugstore on the other corner. After they left one of the grown-ups would invariably have something to say about them. They would spell words like p-r-e-g-n-a- n-t and s-e-x, and I wouldn’t let on that I knew exactly what they were spelling. I felt so mature.
Once in a while, though, Grandpa would have had a few too many and pick a fight with Granny. Those nights weren’t fun at all, because all the grownups would act all disgusted and go to their respective sides of the house, leaving us out there by ourselves. We’d have to amuse ourselves by catching lightning bugs and making lanterns out of Mason jars with holes in the tops. We had to pretend we didn't know.
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