HOT AIR

I tried to post last night but things were moving so slow on the computer that I gave up. Thankfully it has improved today. You that use Blogger know it is tempermental at times!

It's very hot and muggy. I am not complaining, I'm just sayin! I know that a lot of folks are having the same woes. Air conditioning has us spoiled. I think back to the days when I was growing up and we had no AC. Downstairs was warm but upstairs was even worse. We had a screen door which we hooked at night but the main door wasn't closed. Can't do that these days! Well you can, but who wants to? We lived in the country and I remember the one house we lived in I would sleep in the living room. Yes, we had a bed in the living room. At daybreak one of the roosters woke me up with its crowing on the porch. Mind you, school was out and I wanted to sleep in. I would get up and go throw something at the rooster to try and run him off so I wouldn't be able to be disturbed so easily. By then I was awake so he had already done his job of waking me up. Darned rooster.

I think of us working in the fields and it was hot but it didn't seem that bad. We always took a jug of water or drank from the spring, which was mighty refreshing. Then we sat under a tree in the shade to cool off. Daddy would take his cap off and fan with it. It seemed like the breeze under there would be cool. After we cooled off back to work we went. This was usually chopping tobacco. Growing tobacco is a year round job. My Dad didn't want any weeds in his tobacco so we always chopped it 2-3 times. Then you had to top it once it all bloomed out. He also wanted you to look for tobacco worms and pluck them off and kill them if you saw any. To be honest I didn't look. If one wasn't right there for me to see, I just topped the tobacco and moved on. That was a hot sticky job. The gum from the tobacco got on your hands and it was a sticky stinky mess to clean off. The best way was soap and a washcloth. The rubbing with the washcloth usually brought it off. Same thing when you stripped tobacco, you always got gummy hands. But I digress.

I was talking about AC, or the lack of AC, or at least that was meant to be my main subject today. I think of how hard my mother had to work back in those days, back in the days when I was too young to remember and before that. Back then they cooked on woodstoves. Can you imagine having to get up and light up a woodstove on such a hot day like today? Then all the work in the garden with the growing, gathering, and canning? We used to sit in the shade in the evening or on the front porch. It always seemed to cool off then. Later in life, my parents had a window AC but they would never use it hardly ever. Dad said it spoiled you and only made it seem hotter when you went outside. I think that's true but I sure would hate to have to go without it. I am one of the spoiled ones.

One more thing. If you get a chance to go check out Yoderman (Alex) and look at his photos. He and his wife have a new baby boy Daegon! They are starting a new journey in life!