Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 14:30:26 -0400
From: “N.A. Booko”
Subject: Oscillating fans . . .
Today someone wrote and told me that they liked something I had written and signed with “your oscillating fan”-
I indeed like to hear from fans, oscillating or not. But it got me to thinking about oscillating fans- I mean the electrical contraptions that we so depend on during hot weather. What would we do without them? On any given day, in any part or any room in my home, shop or outbuildings, I either have to step over, move or somehow fool with one of my many electrical fans.
I have small ones, big ones and floor fans. Some work on all speeds, some don’t. Can’t say that any of them are ‘good’ fans because I feel that all things like that today, are built to self-destruct within a given time- usually when you least expect it.
Over the years I have grown to hate exhaust fans- the ones in the walls. My exhaust fan in the kitchen really doesn’t close tightly and lets in far too much cold in the winter and it has a way of suddenly starting to run, even with the outside cover closed. The chain that pulls it closed and turns it off, is worn and I have to stick a ball point pen in that to make it stop.
Somewhere in my back work room, I still have an elderly oscillating electrical fan that was made in the 1940s. It was about 12″ diameter and heavy as all get-out. On hot summer nights, my dad would spray our room with D.D.T. an hour or so before bedtime. Then later he would turn on that little fan for a while. I still shudder at the thoughts- the lingering smell and residue of that D.D.T. Now don’t go getting any ideas that now you ‘know’ what is wrong with me, just because I inhaled more than my share of that now banned chemical.
As a teenager, when forced to baby sit with some kids 6 and 8 years old, I did have my ways of keeping them in tow. When they got too rambunctious in the summer, I would say “wanna play a game?”- the electric fan would be going full speed on the kitchen table- Of course they would say ‘yes’- and with that, I would grab one of their outstretched hands, and lunge toward the fan yelling, “The game is called SHORT FINGERS!”
N.A. Booko
(Hot weather coming up! Any fans out there want to play a game?)