Reading is fundamental. Well. . . C.C. sent this to me the other day goading me to submit some of my photographs to the contest.
"You're sure to win," he said.
Sure. So I did. It wasn't until later that I took a closer look at the ad.
Shit! I think I'm in trouble now.
When I told C.C., of course, he laughed.
"You'll win, surely. Have I ever steered you wrong?"
"Right. You're my huckleberry."
One must be ever-so careful who one chooses to be his life coach. Life is full of just such choices.
It is hot here in the rainy south now. It is humid. People must have been mad to move here prior to refrigeration. What could possibly have been their motivation?
My father moved us here when most people's homes did not have air conditioning. Our own home did not have it until we got a window unit in the front room when I was twelve. All the houses in my neighborhood had jalousie windows with screens so that you could open them and have the greatest possible airflow. But the air didn't flow unless it was storming, and then you had to close the jalousies. Rather, a warm, damp air hung in the rooms of the house. What moved the air were fans. Or, in our case, fan. We had one. Why? Why only one? That's just how hillbillies live. I'm sure it never crossed their minds to buy another. So, as a kid, I would plant myself before the fan until my father would yell at me for blocking the air. At night, you went to bed in damp sheets and slept only because your fatigue from living in the heat was so great.
Later on, during my high school years, I lived again without air conditioning in a tiny, cracker house.
My father, by my own logic then, was surely mad. But we did have refrigeration. Even then, however, my parents were stingy. I was only allowed to use two ice cubes in a glass. Just two. Why? I guess the didn't like emptying and refilling the ice trays in the small freezer. My drinks were never really cold.
"Would you like a nice, cool soda?"
The ice cream truck would come down the street before sunset. When kids heard the tinkle of cheesy music spilling from its PA speaker, they'd start screaming.
"GIVE ME A NICKLE, GIVE ME A NICKLE!"
The big, public swimming pools were a treat if you could get your parents to take you. Otherwise, it was playing in the sprinkler.
And still, kids didn't want to take a bath. We must have been stinky little animals.
Dogs didn't move much. They sought the coolest shade they could find. I lived in a redneck neighborhood, so there were no cats.
These were "the good old days." And they were. People played cards, drank beer and martinis, smoked cigarettes, and listened to the transistor radio.
Some people, anyway. But there was plenty of evil.
And weirdness. I went to school with kids who had hare lips, water heads, crossed eyes, buck teeth, and leg braces due to polio. We all had big round scars on our arms from getting the smallpox vaccine. Vaccines were then becoming a thing, but just, and kids got measles, mumps, and chickenpox. We were constantly on the lookout for tetanus. If you got "lockjaw," you were done for. Malaria was a thing still in the southern U.S., so mosquito trucks came around at night spraying DDT. Airplanes dropped other poisons from the sky to stop the spread of crop destroying insects.
Sex was a dirty, forbidden mystery. If we could, we'd sneak somebody's father's Playboy magazines or, later, watch those three minute 8mm movie reels of sloppy strippers.
Black and white television and portable record players.
What got me going on this? Starting Monday morning, I will be working in this incredibly stupid heat. I don't want to. I'd rather be on vacation like everybody else. As I've said before, somebody has used the hoo-doo on me. I've been cursed.
O.K. I'm being dramatic. I always wanted to be an African adventurer when I was a kid. Or, like a Kipling character, some ne'er do well rousting about India.
It looked good, anyway, in books and movies.
See? People could have fun without refrigeration. That's a really good movie. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it. Pre-code.
When earthy prostitute Vantine (Jean Harlow) arrives at Dennis Carson's (Clark Gable) rubber plantation in Indochina, she initiates a steamy affair with the rugged foreman, but is sent packing when the passion cools. Soon Dennis is joined by new employee Gary (Gene Raymond) and his classy but high-strung wife, Barbara (Mary Astor), who falls into Dennis' arms while her husband is away. When Vantine returns, Dennis must decide between the refined adulteress and the tramp with the heart of gold.
Hell, the movie was so good, twenty years later, they made it again, this time set in Africa.
O.K. That's it. No more riffing. I need to get a start on the day. Nothing gets done without doing it.
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