Last night, my daughter texted me in regards to how to put the little window air conditioner in. It has been hot in Anchorage. Not the kind of heat we are seeing while traveling down south right now. Not the humid, horrible, sweltering heat of the Eastern Seaboard or the Gulf Coast….not the crucible of kiln-like dryness of the Southwest. But hot. Alaska is a land of great diversity–especially in regards to the weather. So, it can get hot here. Hot enough to melt your igloo. Add to it that her bedroom is on the side that gets the evening sun and you can imagine the difficulty in going to sleep that a high temp and some extra solar heat load on the wall can cause. We like the house to be around 62 to 65 degrees year round. Get it up to 75 or 80 and it is no fun. And 90?…well, no, that is out of the question. But those temperatures are not unheard of–especially in the Interior of the state, but even Southcentral has its moments of thermally induced misery. And so, her request about how to properly fit the little window unit reminded me of a story from my past: The most powerful air conditioner in the world.
During the summer of 1994, Fairbanks, Alaska got HOT. Very, Very hot. Like up around 95 degrees. Miserable. Granted, when this happens, it only lasts a few days typically…but still…it sucks. I know, all you guys from the south are laughing at me….but believe me, for an Alaskan (natural born or otherwise acclimatized) it really sucks. It also created problems for the sign shop I worked in. My job entailed a lot of different things: traffic control and sign installation, neon and electrical work, overseeing the production shop, and some customer design work too. Naturally, in Fairbanks, the shop was not air conditioned at all. The high temperature caused some difficulty in making some large applied vinyl sign faces–the material began to stretch due to being softened in the heat and the results of uneven stretching were wrinkles. This was the 3M Engineer Grade stuff they use on road signs…once applied, it stays. If damaged during application, you have to sand and scrape it off or scrap the piece. So this 12ft X 4ft disaster was a real problem. And, of course there was a deadline. I resolved this on the second try by putting the roll of vinyl and the piece of metal inside the only air conditioned space we had (the tiny little computer/plotter room) and then waited until the following morning and came in extra early to work on it while the shop was as cool as it could be that day.
Coming in early was pretty easy for me for two reasons: First and foremost, I shared a two bedroom apartment with a coworker and this apartment was conveniently located upstairs above the shop. Secondly, I did not need to set an alarm clock because I never really got to sleep the night before because it was, simply put, too fucking hot to go to sleep! Miserable. But the job got done.
My roommate mentioned that she had a weird dream of walking along a corridor lined with the Vornado fans like the one I had and they all blew cold air on her as she walked down the path. Yep. It was hot. Hot enough to make someone dream of electric fans. Hot enough that I had even tried sleeping on the concrete floor of the computer/plotter room.
Perhaps worst of all, I went out to run an errand later that evening and decided to get a burger at “Sourdough Sam’s” (actually, Sam’s Sourdough Café but Sourdough Sam’s is what we all called the place) So I stopped in, ordered my dinner…..and tried to eat it. Unfortunately, I felt sick. The food was fine…my stomach, a result of no sleep and being overheated for two days straight, was not. So I had them wrap it up to go. On my way home, I decided I was getting an air conditioner. I further decided that I was getting one on the way home and that I was going to buy it from the first place I saw that had one. Period. Shopping around was not going to be a concern on this purchase. I was buying an air conditioner.
I drove into the K-Mart store that was there at the time and walked in. The first person I saw was a cashier. I asked her where they had air conditioners. She pointed to a lowly looking pallet with two remaining boxes on it and said they had those two…and they might have a cheaper one in back. “No, no…one of those will do!” I said as I briskly walked over and took one. $363.00 it was. Done deal. Easiest sale she’d made all day, I’d bet.
Upon getting home, I immediately installed the unit into my bedroom window and turned it on. I sat there as the cold air began to bathe me in its frigid grip of ecstasy. No, I am not being over the top….it was so damn hot that day that I am sure many Fairbanksans could have written erotic fiction about cold air. Willis Carrier, the man who invented practical electric powered air conditioning, is a hero deserving of a national holiday.
After a while, the room became nice and cold. Probably about 55 or 60 degrees. I felt better. I then sat in a chair placed in front of the vents and ate the burger I was unable to a couple of hours before. Then I went to bed and had the best sleep I’d had all week.
The next morning, I awoke and upon going downstairs to the shop and outside, I discovered that the entire town was about 30 degrees colder than it had been the day before. Yep. Alaska has diverse weather. ….or that air conditioner was the most powerful one in the world.