First on a Summer Garden Hose & Last on the Ice Cream Crank...BAD

My wife and I usually go to Wal Mart every July to purchase a discounted 'fan' that will be given to a needy person during these Midwest summer days. This past week (July 14) has seen a heat wave grip for most folks in 43 states. Many 'senior citizen centers across the country remain open extended hours to accommodate the elderly who are without air conditioning and most shopping malls find many more folks 'hanging-out' to find relief.

I remember my youth in East St. Louis, that industrial city on the banks of the Mississippi where the summer heat and humidity combine for sweltering conditions.  My 1954, baseball uniform was made out of 100% wool; I wore a t-shirt and pajama bottoms under the wool uniform to reduce the incredible 'itching' under that July sun. Speaking of a hot July; the temperature this week (July 2013) in Decatur, Illinois will linger at 93 degrees for a high and it will be 'muggy.' On July 14, 1954, the East St. Louis temperature was 115 degrees...the Roustios, as did most folks, did not have air conditioning but we did have a window fan and thank God for screened porches and Grandpa E. V. Bennett's homemade ice cream.

Let me reflect on homemade ice cream, if I may. Not many folks make homemade ice cream these days and the ice cream makers today are electric, which requires no 'crank-the-handle' efforts. You see, back in the day, the ice cream ingredients were place into a cylinder container, which was then positioned inside a wooden mini-barrel container that had ice and salt placed between the cylinders and a crank mechanism was then engaged by people who would turn and turn and turn until the ice cream became hard. The cranking was 'easy' in the beginning but became very difficult, requiring much 'grunt effort' later in the process. This explains why Grandpa E.V. took his cranking turns early.

The July days of 1954, found a 15-year old boy taking the city bus to Lansdowne junior high school where he honed basketball shooting skills all morning and then walking his girlfriend to Jones Park to sit together by the lagoon and then play American legion Baseball of an evening...if time permitted, I concluded the day shooting more baskets in my backyard under spotlights; much to the dismay of the local cops who said the spotlights presented a hazard for motorists...my dad won that debate!

Funny but I don't recall being uncomfortable with the summer heat of July 1954; I do recall that July as perhaps the best summer of my life. I will always be grateful to neighbors who left garden hoses attached; you just had to remember not to be first on the hose.