Today I drove Truett to rehab in Gainesville, followed by a trip to the mall. Eventually, we arrived home and when we walked in our house, we knew something was terribly wrong. Mom was napping. That was good. The puppies were romping in the yard. That was good. But, the house was hotter than blue blazes! No air conditioning was working!
It was 90 degrees outside with a heat index of 98 degrees! Tonight Mom kissed me on the neck and said, "You're sweating!"
And then I thought about being an Old Timer. What qualifies us as being Old Timers is living in a time when we had no air conditioning and believing that the Ichetucknee Springs and the Santa Fe River belonged to the people who lived in the community.
I used to tell my students the story about our family going to the Ichetucknee Springs every day at 5:00 p.m. to take a bath. Then we would come home and splay ourselves out in front of rotating fans, muttering "Don't touch me"; and about nine o'clock we would retire to our beds, with the humming of rotating fans lulling us to sleep. And that, my friends is a sign of being an Old Timer.
"You actually took soap and shampoo to the Ichetucknee Springs and took a bath?" my students questioned.
"Yes, we did," I answered. "Everyday at precisely 5:00 P.M., just as the tourists were leaving."
Today, after I walked in my house to a suffocating heat. Today, after walking to my front porch for some sort of relief, but getting none.
Today, I thought, "How in the world did we do it back then? How did we fight the heat and the high humidity?"
Well, folks. We just did because now we are considered Old Timers.
But, hey! Here's the good news. A.C.E. Heating and Air Conditioning repaired our air conditioning within thirty minutes of my frantic call to them.
I don't want to be an Old Timer any more. It's just too hard!