Give the Man Some Air! All of the buzz last week was about a rare commodity up here in the mountains—air conditioning. On Wednesday of last week it was 92 degrees, even up here in the glacier. A knowledgeable colleague of mine in Lake Arrowhead says only 1-½ percent of the people up here have air conditioners in their houses. He’s one of them. I visit him a lot. As I sat talking with Betty Chamberlin, our Crestline librarian, last week she lamented that although she works in what she calls the most beautiful building in Crestline, the only drawback is that there is no air conditioning. Before it was our library, it was the post office. It must have been stifling for the workers on days like this. Later in the day, I was present at the chamber of commerce office, where Supervisor Paul Biane presented the annual bed tax check to the chamber. He said that when he started up the hill it was 104 degrees in San Bernardino. He said he cranked his car air conditioner up to high all the way up the hill, despite the sign that admonishes motorists not to do so. “My car is probably burning up in the parking lot right now,” he said. There were so many chamber members there, the supervisor asked whether they were having the regular chamber meeting. If you ask me, I think they were all there for the air conditioning, which works great in that little building. Just a few months ago, the thought of air conditioning would have made me shiver. I have a three-story house. The top floor of the house is about 10 degrees warmer than the middle floor, which is 10 degrees warmer than the bottom floor. My office is on the bottom floor, so I have it nice during the summer, although it’s still hot. My wife’s office (she’s a Forest Service employee who works at home) is on the top floor, so she burns up during the summer. Of course, in the winter, she’s nice and toasty and has the added benefit of the fireplace, while I sit in the dungeon and freeze. I have two of those electric oil radiators that you sometimes see at Lake Drive Hardware. On really cold days I sit with one on either side of me. It’s like being a little muffin in a toaster. But I can’t imagine right now why that would appeal to me, because I’m sweating. And I have a very sensitive computer when it comes to heat. When the mercury tops 90 degrees, I have to open up its case and blow the fan directly on the microprocessor. I have to save my work every minute or so because I never know when I’m going to get a freeze-up. (Isn’t that ironic?) I either get a bunch of colored bands or the dreaded Blue Screen of Death on my monitor. Then I shut everything down and wait about an hour before rebooting. One time I was working on a healthcare journal and was nearly finished when this happened. When I tried to reopen the PageMaker file it was corrupted and I could not open it. I was forced to rewrite (free of charge to my client, of course) 18,000 words and redo the entire layout. They say that we don’t have air conditioning up here because we don’t need it. However, there are about 10 days a year for which it would sure come in handy, but it’s not worth the money for that amount of time. Maybe we could all get together and do an air conditioning co-op. Just run a big hose all over town from the Master Blaster air conditioning unit in the chamber office. Then we could all just pay a fee to the chamber for the 10 days we use it. All of you 1-½ percenters out there listen up. The next time it gets hot like this, give me a call, and I’ll come over. I’ll bring the lemonade and we can be buds for a day. |
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