Fan it Away!

“Here,” she said.A flick of the wrist and . . .  Well, a couple of attempts at this and there it was—a bright red fan.
     Insert music. Something Spanish. Think    flamenco.
     But this isn’t a movie.
     This is me and my friend Susan, just back from a two-week vacation in Barcelona.  She and I were on our weekly hour-long walk. It was a gift from her travels.
     By the time I made it home, I had mastered the flick of the wrist for unfolding the fan. Okay, that’s a bad word choice. I had figured out how to do the flick of the wrist for unfolding the fan.
And it caused me to reflect on the fans of my childhood.
     There were no air conditioners when I was five years old. I didn’t even know they existed. In upstate New York, we had our sultry summer days, but the nights would always seem to cool off and make things tolerable.
     Are things different now? Is the mean temperature for Cattaraugus County higher now than in 1955? I don’t know. I am sure I could find out. Let’s assume, for now, that the answer is, maybe, slightly.
     So, 1955. Hot and sultry during the day. Cooler at night. We endured the days. Looked forward to the sweet cool of night.
     Church. A frame clapboard box with little insulation. No air conditioning. No large Casablanca-type ceiling fans.  Windows were propped open with sticks.  And we prayed for cross breezes.
     Winter we might clutch our coats around us, sit close to others in the pew. The sanctuary was heated by one space heater. Wood.
     Summer, we had electricity for lights, but no fans.
     I sat there. Five. Under the diatribe of the preacher, my father, I began to feel guilty. For my sins. At five, this timid child had a paltry list of sins. But they were sins.
     We would hear about the consequence of sin. Sin that had not been pardoned by confession and acceptance of Jesus into one’s heart. The fires of hell. The burning fires of hell.
     Perhaps this had the most impact on me in summer. When I and the rest of the congregation sat there sweating. Not only sweating, but also starting to stick to the old varnish of the pews of the Eddyville church.
     Grownups this may not have bothered. But I had no long pants to separate me from the sticky surface. I had no nylon stockings. I was five. It was me and my short dress, and that meant the backs of my knees touched the pew. The sweaty hot backs of my knees and the warm, approaching sticky varnished pews.
     I sat there Sunday after Sunday. I had, in fact, perfect attendance at Sunday School (and church) for years. I have a pin to prove it.
     And so I sat. And sweated. And stuck to the pews.

     And the only thing that brought any relief were the fans. There were rounded pieces of cardboard, printed with pictures of Jesus, and mounted on a slim wooden sticks. A paddle, as it were. These were imprinted with the name of the local funeral home and were stuck in the hymnbook holders on the back of each pew.
     Ah yes. A breeze finally. A controllable breeze. And if my mother was pumping away at the organ, I had total control of the fan.
     Whoosh. Whoosh.
      I could believe in anything then.
     Whoosh. Whoosh.
     Life was tolerable. I could make it through the service and not melt!
     As I hold Susan’s fan, and flick it back and forth. And say “ah,” I realize something. The fans in my church were not meant for five-year-olds. These were lifesavers to menopausal women.  Flick. Flick.    Ahh.
     The fan saves.