The year started out like previous years with Uncle Bob calling Mom on their common birthday January 16th.  Also in January the US space program got off to a smashing start when the Ranger 6 lunar probe, designed to send the first close up pictures of the moon surface back to earth, crashed into the moon.  Well, Okay, it was supposed to crash into the moon but due to a failure of the camera system, no pictures were returned.  At least they didn’t miss the moon this time.

In February I saw the Beatles three times on the Ed Sullivan Show  playing many of their popular songs including “I want to Hold your Hand”, “Twist and Shout” and “I Saw Her Standing There”. 

In April NASA launched the first un-manned test flight of the Gemini spacecraft which made three full orbits before its orbit started to decay and, by design, burn up during re-entry.

Air Conditioning

A coolness came to the air in May, we got air condition in our house, well sort of. Dad bought window unit which he put in the dining room window but there wasn’t sufficient power outlet for it.  Dad, always the do-it-yourself type, bought some electrical wire and another breaker for the fuse box.  He then climbed up into the attic and made his way over to where the air conditioning unit was.  This was no small feat for the entrance to the attic was on the opposite side of the house, in the ceiling of the hallway, which was made more complicated for while the entry was four feet across, it was total filled with a huge attic fan which had to be removed first to access the attic.  The attic itself was only about two feet high due to the low slope of the roof of the houses built at that time.  After removing the fan, crawling across the length of the house in the two foot high attic space, he had to drill a hole to the fuse panel and another to the outlet box by the air conditioning unit and then feed the wire down through the holes.  I assisted in this effort by being by the fuse box in the kitchen to confirm the wire was there and then again by the outlet for the unit all the while Dad was up in the hot, two-foot high attic space.

With the wiring in place, Dad crawled his way back across the house, came down from the attic dripping in sweat and took a break and some ice water before completing the wiring. To install the unit in the window, Dad removed the lower slats of glass from the jealousy windows, and installed the unit which wasn’t easy as the unit was the largest one he could find that would fit in the window.  Finally, with it installed, the family all gathered around anxiously waiting for the big moment, Dad reached over, grasped the knob, turned it, and a blast of hot air came rushing out at us standing there.  We stood shocked but then the air started to cool, and cool, and we were so happy, air conditioning at last.

Although the unit was large and  blasted out cold air into the dining room and living room quite well, not much of the cool air got to the bedrooms which were off a hallway on the opposite side of the living room from the air conditioner. It wasn’t long before Dad bought a second smaller window unit that he put in his and Mom’s room.   Another problem was the unit was in the dining room window next to the dining table, so it blasted cold air out over the dining room table, shoulder height for adults, head height for kids, which wasn’t comfortable sitting at the table not to mention the noise it made so we usually turned it off at dinner time.  

After school let out in June, we again went to Vacation Bible School at Westside Baptist Church, more of the same, learning verses and the same old stories.

One summer weekend we went to the beach where we had fun playing in the surf and in the sand.

Brenda and Beth

David buried in the sand

Me

Updated: 08-18-2022

Soap Box Derby