Fan weather

The last few days have been hot and humid. Summer is fast approaching. I have been enjoying having the windows open. Love the fresh air and hearing the birds sing. With the hot and humid conditions during the day and early evening, window fans are appropriate. Later,I will bring out the window air conditioning units. It is a necessary task and one I don't like doing. Also don't like the accompanying electric bill.
I also have a pedestal type fan. It oscillates and moves quite a bit of air. It is running even as I type this mornings' blog. The sound that it makes is the subject of my blog. That low droning sound,almost a moan.
The pitch rising and falling every so slightly as it goes through its' cycle. The first time I heard this sound was in 1971. I had joined the Navy and went to Fort Hamilton in New York City for my entrance examination. It was August and hot ! The induction center was not air conditioned and huge pedestal fans were everywhere.
As with all things Military it was,hurry up and wait ! Several hundred applicants sitting in a huge room with those big fans running and no one saying much. I guess we were all nervous about what the day would bring.
There were two groups of people; those of us that volunteered and those that were drafted. We weren't separated but you could tell by attitude who was who. After receiving our instructions for the day we began the process of induction.
On the tiled floor of the induction center there were arrows. You were to follow these arrows from station to station. At each station was a Doctor that would check specific things. The check itself was very quick,the wait was long. The time you spent waiting in line was accented by that ever constant drone of those fans. The air was thick and carried the smell of a couple hundred young men sweating. Not a pleasant way to spend the day. Monotonous is the only word that fits the bill.
Later,as my Navy career continued I would hear those fans. My first ship had no air conditioning. Fans. I worked in the engine room,no air conditioning,fans. Over the course of twenty years I was in a lot of places and there were those fans. They were a constant. Lying awake in my bunk with thoughts of home the sound of those fans were like a soundtrack. A background noise barely even noticed,until it stopped. Then.the silence was deafening.
Soon the fan weather will pass. The air conditioners go into the windows. The fans return to the attic. It is just part of the cycle. All things happen in cycles. I'll enjoy the fan while I can still bear the relative heat and humidity. I've become soft,or is it that I've got the choice,to turn on that a/c ?
Still,whenever I hear the sound of a fan I am taken back. Like an old song can transport you to another time and place, the sound of a fan takes me back. Back to my days in the military. Back to standing in line and just waiting. Back to lonely nights at sea. It is a sound both comforting and lonely.