The Air Conditioner 12/14/2011
The summer days were some of the hottest they'd seen in a while and it wasn't even the end of July yet. When Willie walked his insurance route, he wanted to come home to a cooler house. Helen had been telling him for a while that the house on Ruth Street was terribly hot during the heat of the day and little Paula was so fussy because of it. Another thing, Helen just didn't handle the heat too well...she would even get nauseous from the heat. The shade tree and the box fan in the window just weren't enough to keep the family cool.  Helen cracked open a couple of trays of ice and put some cubes in a tall glass and poured her some sweet tea. She loved the way you could have cubes of ice instead of having to use an ice pick to chip away at a big ole hunk of ice. She would still rinse out her milk cartons and fill them up with water to freeze for extra ice if she needed it. After she had used all the cubes she needed for the tea...she put the left over cubes in a bowl and put in the freezer so there would always be ice. Nothing aggravated her more than when she wanted some ice cubes and someone had left the tray in the sink. You would have to wait until it froze again to have ice cubes...and we know how she loved her ice cubes! As soon as she sat down under the shade tree to sip on her tea...each of the kids in turn asked her for a drink ...didn't take long for that tall glass of sweet tea to turn into a glass full of ice. Bless their hearts, the kids were hot and thirsty too...she had to tell Willie they needed to get that air conditioner from Sears she had seen. It would fit in the living room window just fine.  When she showed Willie the ad for the window air conditioner that they could buy on time at Sears, he was all for it! Having a cool place for his family in this heat and a cool place for him to come home to after a long day of "beating the pavement" was very appealing to him. They went to Sears in downtown Sikeston and charged a Whirlpool Air Conditioner. It didn't matter that it would take them a year to pay for it...what was important to them was that they would finally be cool. When they came in the front door of the living room with that window unit, Willie didn't waste any time putting it in. Helen was right...the front window worked fine and they would be able to set a few fans around to draw the cool air to the bedrooms. That wasn't enough for the kids though. They all wanted to sleep close to the living room that night where the air conditioner was. So Helen and Willie made pallets in the living room for the girls and pallets in the kitchen for the boys....they felt like they were on a camping trip and were happy...and... COOL!!! Comments Your comment will be posted after it is approved. Leave a Reply |  Author
Paula Tollison Andrews Maupin I am married to Bobby and live in the Nashville, TN area, working as Executive Assistant to both the Director of Sales and General Manager of FOX17, MyTV30 & CW58 television I have 3 wonderful sons and daughters in
love (Brad & Holly Andrews, Bryan & Stacy Andrews and Brandon
& Ashley Andrews) from Tulsa, St. Louis & Springfield
respectively. They have given me 9 precious grandbabies. (Joseph,
Cooper, Margo, Sloan, Jonas, Nora, Everett, Lawson and Blythe & Gma
loves them so much) I also have 2 great stepsons and daughter in love
(Jonathan & Kathryn Maupin and William Maupin) from Lexington,
Kentucky.
As a lady who's lived through both good & bad circumstances in my life, I've learned and continue to learn a lot of "life lessons". Along the way I have been inspired to be a better me. God is faithful in ALL circumstances and His love covers all. My hope is that you will be inspired to be who you were meant to be. I have been writing this blog about my mom and dad since September of 2011. You can find their story from the beginning by going to the Stories link. Happy Reading!!!   ArchivesMarch 2012 |
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