The Southern Twins

My Childhood Friend. HA!

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. Growing up in the south, when we were little there was no air conditioning and so of course fans were every where. At night, with all the windows open and the box fans running it became some sort of a lullaby to sleep to. I love the sound of a fan. I love the cool air blowing on my face.  At my grandmother’s house, you knew it was summer when she would drag the huge attic fan out and put in up on concrete blocks in front of a bedroom window to blow air through the house. I loved that fan. 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. I can still remember coming home from long weeks of being at camps during the summer. We would both go upstairs and lay on the bed and crash. We would sleep for hours and hours in front of that big fan. I don’t know what is was, it was just so soothing. Later, when I went to college, my father moved Anne and I in to 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 may suffer from frostbite and fall off but it was never an option to turn the fan OFF. When I left college and moved in with a bunch of roommates in a big ole house downtown Lexington, I had two fans in my room. My roommate said it sounded like an airport hanger in my bedroom. heehee!  Later on Anne and I rented a house together, here came my fan! Her’s too. I woke up one night to my fan not running. I messed with it forever and it was clear that my fan had burn up…it was no longer..it had clearly had enough. I woke Anne up in the middle of the night and told her I was going to WalMart to buy a new fan. ha! I still have a fan in my bedroom. It is strange, cause I certainly don’t need one to sleep. I don’t travel with a fan. I don’t haul one around with me when I go on vacation, it doesn’t bother me to not have one, but given the option…I want my fan, damnit! It really is a feeling of my childhood that I think I will always carry with me. It reminds me of life being simple, of life being still, of a quieter time. It reminds me of being worn out from playing to hard as a kid and taking long naps laying in front of one. It reminds me of the quietness of that ole plantation style house I grew up in. So basically, it has been a constant in my life since I was a munchkin and now on the backside of 30….it still is. I think it always will be.

Leigh W