We lived in Marlin, Texas and visited Granny on Sunday's. Granny had a comfortable wooden frame house with a large porch. What stood out for me was her ice box. In Marlin, we had an electric refrigerator. But, Granny had an ice box. You went to the ice house and bought a block of ice to fit her ice box.
The outside was made of wood and the inside was lined with metal. I remember the smell to this day. Coke cans remind me of the smell inside the ice box. Granny would put the chunk of ice into the top of the box and it would last about a week. Carrying it home was always tricky because it was so cold that you had to switch it often from arm to arm so you wouldn't feel like your arm was freezing off.
Our first cars didn't have air conditioners. We took a long trip once and fitted the car with a hanging ice box. A round cylinder hung out the car window and it held a chunk of ice. When you drove, the wind blew over the ice and caused the air to circulate inside the car. That wasn't very efficient either because you needed to be sitting near the vent to get what little benefit it gave on long hot trips.
The first TV's were expensive and only had a few stations. The wooden box was large and housed an oval, black and white screen. It was about 6 inches high. Everyone had to huddle near the TV to see the image. Some of the first programs we watched were Groucho Marx and Ed Sullivan. The voices had a scratchy sound. The TV's cost about $500 which was a lot of money then. There wasn't anything like cable. You just plugged it into the wall socket and you got the two stations. I watched it at my boyfriends house, his father was a doctor, because we couldn't afford one.
I had to make do with my radio programs at home. I'd settle in my rocking chair between two windows. One faced north and the other faced east. Usually there was a good breeze coming through the windows. If the wind was still, we'd turn the dial on the attic fan. A huge fan placed in the attic was about 5 feet tall and the east end of the attic had large louvers that opened to let in the breeze or take out the heat. From a large grate in the ceiling, the air circulated through the two bedrooms. Every so often, the timer would go off and we'd jump up to set it again.
In my bedroom corner, I'd listen to the Lone Ranger, Inner Sanctum, The Squeaking Door, The Invisible Man while I did my homework or practiced on my alto saxophone.
When we were able to buy a TV, we'd gather in the dining room and watch the few programs we had. Until the programs got better, I mostly stuck to the radio.
I have since practiced going back to the old days. I opened my windows here at the house and experienced the heat gusts, the outside noises and placed floor fans in various spots. Even with the ceiling fan and floor fan going, it was still sultry and my skin was wet with perspiration. Bugs were more likely to get into the house through the screens with the attraction of the lights. Good old days, they weren't. But, we could live like that again if we have to.
I think I could do without TV and I definitely enjoy the radio. Doing without the computer would be a hard stretch.
In the coming months, I will test my tolerance to what I could live with in the event of a total electrical shut down. Do we have to go back to the pot bellied cooking stove and the ice box. Will transportation be horse and buggy again? It looks like America is headed backwards instead of forward. The EPA wants to tax us on oil and gas so much that the little people can't afford to have air conditioning or central heating. Special interest have gotten out of hand. The environmentalists are so radical that their rules and regulations will be the ruin of our nation.
Americans are a hardy soul. Every able bodied person will have to get up and work. No more welfare just because you have a baby. Everyone will have to pull their own weight. It's a new frontier and we've gone over it before in a covered wagon.
Americans will triumph over crooked politicians and megalomaniac power hungry individuals who are bent on a world government and a curtailment of the population. We are an honest, hard working group. God bless America.
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