The Fan in My Life
Sometimes, the simple things from your childhood stay with you. A box fan has made my life better.
Recently, my husband and I moved into our forever home. It’s a 100-year-old house, much like my grandmother’s home. True to form, it doesn’t have central heat and air.
When I was a little girl, Anne and I would lay blankets down on the floor in our bedroom and lay in front of a box fan. I could nap forever with my face in front of a fan. After a hard day of playing, it was one of the best rewards. Growing up in the south, when we were little, there was no air conditioning, and so, of course, fans were everywhere. At night, having all the windows open and the box fans running, it became a lullaby that helped us sleep. With the cool air blowing on my face, I could sleep forever. Mom said we did just that when we were babies. She would put us in our cribs with a fan blowing, and we would sleep all afternoon. She started us out early with a fan.
At my grandmother’s house, you knew it was summer when that big ole attic fan came out and was hoisted up on concrete blocks in front of a bedroom window to blow air through the house. I can still hear her saying to my dad, “Johnny, it’s time to get the fan out.”
I can still feel that cool breeze flowing through the back staircase of that house. It was the coolest spot in the house on those hot 95-degree days. Anne and I would spend weeks and weeks at camp during the summer. I swear, over half our childhoods were spent at 4-H camp, horse camp, cheerleading camp, etc. We loved it. After being gone for weeks, we would drag ourselves back home and go straight to sleep in front of that fan. We would sleep for days. Exhausted from the fun of summer. I remember my Grandmother waking us up and saying, “At some point, you have to eat.”
I don’t know what it was; it was just so soothing. Later, when I went to college, my father moved Anne and me into our dorm rooms. Before he left, he asked if we had everything we needed, and we both said, “Oh my, we need to go buy a fan!” I remember him muttering something and rolling his eyes, but he took us to Walmart, and we each got a fan. I slept every single night with that fan on. It didn’t matter if it was 30 below outside; I had that fan running. There were times when I thought my nose might sustain frostbite and fall off, but it was never an option to turn the fan OFF. When I left college and moved to a house in downtown Lexington, I had two fans in my room. My roommate said it sounded like an airport hanger in my bedroom.
Isn’t it strange the things that can become a constant in your life? I still sleep with a fan. Anne does, too. When my grandmother passed away, it was up to Anne and me to clean out her house. We were going through her things, and of course, like a statue from the past, there sat that big attic fan. Did that fan go on the moving truck to go home with us? Sure. Did we need the fan? No, but sometimes nostalgia isn’t about “need.”
Recently, my husband and I moved into our forever home. It’s a 100-year-old house, much like my grandmother’s home. It also doesn’t have central heat and air. My husband and I talked about it and I told him I wanted to go one summer without it. Our first night there, I had all the windows open and a few box fans going. It was pure bliss.
There are some things from our childhood that we will always carry with us. Do we think of them every day? Of course not. But every once in a while, when the birds are chirping, my windows are open, and a fan is humming, I remember the simplicity of my childhood. I remember a time when life was still and quiet. It takes me to a place that warms my heart and calms my soul, and I am truly blessed that a simple fan can take me right back to that special place.
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I’m 70 and guess what I’ve got my fan going right now. I remember the fan going and the rain hitting the tin roof on my grandparents house. I’ll take a fan over air conditioning any day.
A fan and a tin roof is the best combination ever!
Leigh, I love your story about the fan’. That really took me back to my childhood. I have been asked many times by my kids why I always sleep with a fan on, my daughter says dad, it’s winter! But there has always been something about a fan blowing on my face and the sound of the fan running that puts me to sleep, been doing it since my childhood. So thanks so much for sharing just one more of those precious memories of growing up..Vernon
I love that you have the same memories!!