Much of my parental direction during the decade of my preteen and teen years was focused on saving as much money as possible on life’s daily routines. My parents’ cost-saving and oft-puzzling directives sometimes gave rise to adolescent angst, but, in retrospect, were generally harmless.
Today, several decades later (six decades later for the benefit of full disclosure), these directives still resonate. Some elicit smiles, some trigger nostalgic memories, some prompt wonderment. In fairness to all parties, they were meant to be in the best interest of the entire family long-term, and not intended as punishment (at least that’s what I want to believe!).
“Get into the shower before you turn on the water.”
Waiting for the water to become warm before entering the shower would use extra water, and also extra gas to heat the extra water. Thus I was directed to enter the shower before turning on the water. Once the water began to flow I was instructed to immediately begin washing and rinsing. This meant by the time the water was heated to a temperature at which a human could actually survive, I was done showering. This routine led to brief showers, which no doubt was the ultimate goal.
It wasn’t until I was twenty-five years old and newly-married that my wife informed me it is perfectly acceptable behavior to wait outside the shower for the water to warmup before entering.
“Do not turn on the water for the cooler unless we tell you it’s ok.”
In the summer our house was cooled by what was known as an evaporative cooler, or as it was commonly called at the time, a swamp cooler. It was a large metal box that sat atop the house and contained a fan that blew outside air into each room in the home via vents. The cooling mechanism was a water hose placed next to the fan. When the water was turned on, the air created by the fan was cooled by the running water from the hose and the cool air would be distributed through the vents. The operative words are when the water was turned on.
“Unless we tell you it’s ok” was parental code for only they have the authority to turn on the water for the cooler, which usually took place just minutes prior to everyone in the house becoming disoriented by the hot air flowing through the vents. In the hometown of my youth the daily outside summer temperatures averaged between 105-115 degrees Fahrenheit. Every day in the summer I would go outside in the morning and stay outdoors until well after sundown in order to escape the indoor heat.
We had a mysterious apparatus that was permanently built into the lower half of our living room wall. It was the size of a wall air conditioner, maybe three feet wide and two feet in height. Located in its center were vents. On its exterior was printed a strange word, “Dehumidifier.” I guessed the word was from a foreign language, perhaps German. The exterior of the appliance jutted outside from the living room wall into the carport.
The dehumidifier was mysterious for two reasons. All of its control knobs were missing, plus in all my years in the home I had never seen it running. In retrospect, knowing how my household operated it’s likely the answer to the first mystery solves the second. I’m now quite sure my parents removed the control knobs and moved them to a secure location known only to them.
One hot summer day in my early teens when I was home alone I determined to discover the function of this mysterious appliance. With a pair of pliers I twisted and turned all of the knob-less metal appendages on the control panel. I had to try all of them as each appendage’s identity was obscured by what appeared to be purposeful scratches of either a sharp blade or screw driver.
One of my twists with the pliers activated the appliance. To my utter surprise and enjoyment, soothing ice cold air immediately began to emanate from the vents. I bathed my face in the frigid air, but my pleasure was tempered by the worry that I wouldn’t be able to turn off the appliance before my parents arrived home. I reluctantly decided that what was best for my summer freedom was to turn it off. After five minutes of struggling twisting different knobs I succeeded in shutting it down.
I believed I was safe. I was wrong. When my father entered the front door approximately 45 minutes later he exclaimed “You turned on the dehumidifier, and that’s going to increase our electric bill!” How could he possibly know this? Could it be that in just the five minutes it was on the appliance had reduced the living room’s climate below our household’s summer benchmarks of 95 degrees Fahrenheit and 95% humidity?
I hemmed and hawed. My father then guided me outside to the carport. He pointed down to the ground just below the appliance’s exterior. There lay a puddle of condensation the size of a dime. I was convicted of the crime. My sentence was one summer week of house arrest, lounging twenty-four hours a day in the warm summer breezes of the swamp cooler.
I never dared touch the control panel again. It wouldn’t have mattered even if I had, because one day during my incarceration I noticed the dehumidifier’s power cord had been removed. I never did find out what “Dehumidifier” translates to in English, and I was afraid to ask.
During the summer and the winter months the temperature inside our home was maintained at two constant and distinct levels based on the season. The summer temperature was HOT, the winter temperature was COLD. These were the days before wall thermostats existed to regulate a home’s temperature. We had two human thermostats that regulated our home’s temperature. They were the guardians of the water hose handle for the swamp cooler in the summer, and the on/off switches of the wall heaters in the winter.
It was explained to us kids that although the house may seem hot in the summer and cold in the winter, it was important for medical reasons not to have the in-home temperature continually fluctuate up and down via changes in cooling and heating. We were warned that constant variations in temperature inside the home would make us much more susceptible to summer and winter colds.
Apparently in our home the common cold was considered to be more lethal than either heat stroke or hypothermia.
After supper the kitchen is closed for the night.
This directive was non-verbal, yet clearly communicated.
In our home, after the supper dishes and utensils were washed, dried, and put away, the kitchen was closed up securely for the night. To insure there was no misunderstanding about the closure, the window shade was drawn, the kitchen light was turned off, and the door connecting the kitchen to the living room was closed. Not a single shred of light was visible to the outside world from the kitchen. The kitchen was now securely blacked out and invisible to any potential enemy family members under the age of sixteen lurking about, as well as to any potential enemy aircraft should war suddenly be declared.
I recall one time around the age of twelve I was at a friend’s house for a sleepover. We were in his bedroom playing a board game. At around 8PM he left the room. He came back a few minutes later with two bologna and cheese sandwiches and two cokes. I had never witnessed, nor even ever heard of, such a thing as this. It was two hours after supper, the kitchen had to be locked up tight for the night. How could he have pulled off this crime without his parents knowing it? What if his dad comes in the bedroom and catches us with this contraband?
Fight-or-Flight? The appeal of eating my maiden evening snack, no matter how illicit, preached fight. The dread of perceived punishment preached flight. My sympathetic nervous system chose both. I shoved the sandwich into my mouth and bolted out the front door.
“Don’t lie down on the couch when you’re watching television at night. You’ll fall asleep and the TV will be running all night.”
This was the decade when most families had only one television in their home, generally a two-ton console version lining an entire living room wall. While the console itself was eight feet across, the television picture screen within it was eighteen inches wide at best. The remaining six-and-a-half feet of the beast was an intricate assemblage of wiring, tubes, speakers and other mysterious parts. Due to its complexity only the local shop owner with a PHD in television repair understood how everything worked in tandem. Thus the great fear of one of the TV’s components breaking down due to constantly being left on was legitimate, not only because of the PHD’s prospective repair fee, but also due to the possibility of having to somehow remove the two-ton mass from the home if unrepairable.
Eventually our television’s picture did go out, (luckily for me I wasn’t reclining when it happened), but for some unknown reason its sound remained perfectly intact. Thus we were able to listen to TV and avoid a service call. My favorite show to listen to was “Lost in Space.” My parents favorite was “The Lawrence Welk Show.” However, “Sing Along with Mitch” became a family viewing casualty because without a picture we weren’t able to follow the bouncing ball.
After several months of listening pleasure the TV’s sound died as well, but rather than dispose of the console it was repurposed and became a permanent part of our living room décor, a sturdy eight-foot shelf displaying encyclopedias and family photos.
“The plastic protects the furniture from wearing out sooner than it should.”
Sitting or lying on any furniture in our living room wasn’t that comfortable. Each furnishing had a clear, thick plastic cover tightly fitted over it to protect it. To be most effective the fit had to be tight enough so no air was present between the plastic and the cushion. Supposedly the cover’s purpose was to protect the furniture piece from stains and wear and tear, although I also suspect another motive was to dissuade any young family member from getting too comfortable lying or sitting for a long period. Both motives proved successful.
In the heat of summer, upon rising from a lying position on the couch the plastic cover would adhere to your entire body, forcing you to painfully peel it off body-part by body-part. When sitting in a chair for an extended period of time in summer, the heat generated by the plastic would become so intense that it would fuse with its partner chair cushion, so upon rising both the plastic cover and the chair cushion would be attached to your backside.
In the cold of winter, sitting or lying on the frigid dense plastic could lower your body’s core temperature by a good twenty degrees in just a matter of minutes. In wintertime, lounging while watching a thirty-minute television show without once rising would cause ice particles to form between any bare skin and the plastic. Viewing a one-hour program in its entirety created a glacier of melded frozen flesh and plastic that could only be separated by a paleontologist’s rock hammer and chisel. Without timely thawing your head and body could become strong candidates for cryonics.
I really enjoyed and respected Ted Williams as a baseball player, but I didn’t know him well enough to share an afterlife with him.
“Don’t read in bed at night with the bedroom light on.”
If you know how to read in bed at night without the bedroom light on, please feel free to let me know. Yes, we owned flashlight, but it was kept in an undisclosed location to preserve its batteries, most likely sequestered next to the dehumidifier’s control knobs and power cord.
I had hopes of sharing additional tales, but, alas, I have an emerging financial emergency I must tend to immediately. My ten-year-old grandson is staying over, and I’ve just realized he is letting the water run in the shower far longer than is necessary.
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Steve Carney is an introverted retiree who periodically overdoses on a combination of strong coffee and bootleg Ensure, thus stirring memories of his 1960’s tween and teen years. That aside, he also now sleeps more during the day than at night.
His short-term memory is kinda shaky, however, on the opposite end of the memory spectrum he can recite the winners and losers of every World Series played between 1950 and 1970, so he’s got that going for him.
I can’t recall if I mentioned his short-term memory is kinda shaky?