In 1963 my father posted to Ft. Jackson in Columbia, SC. On the way he bought automobile air-conditioning for the first time at a dealership in Atlanta. He didn’t want it, but “it came with the car.”

He refused to turn it on–said it taxed the engine. The car was a V-8. We could have run from the police in it.

Did I forget to mention, it was July in the sand hills of South Carolina?

The first time we turned onto Assembly Street in Columbia, we saw a cross between a set for a Rob Zombie movie, and a de Chirico painting. At noon in July in the predominately-black shopping section of Columbia, there wasn’t a soul on the street.

“Where is everyone?” said my mother.

We would later learn that “everyone”—black and white were six blocks down by the river sipping moonshine beneath willow trees. Moonshine, I might add, made within a pistol shot of the Governor’s Mansion.

My father paused at a light and surveyed the low-canopied buildings, the empty shadows, the pawnshops, Army & Navy stores, and the parked cars sealed like ovens.

My father reached over and turned on the car AC, and for the next 18 summers in Columbia–the remainder of his life–refused to turn it off.

i’m not much for bumper stickers, since i don’t have a car, but i’d pay good money for a t-shirt that said “i’d rather be reading bukowski.”

beautiful post… i miss lightening storms.