Steve West - Thank the Lord for the fan

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, June 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Ah, summer. And lately, hot, sweltering, sweaty summer. Here’s WORLD commentator Steve West.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: Under the category of things to be grateful for, add the oscillating fan. Mine is relegated to the attic most of the time, what with air conditioning. But I am sitting under it now, as our air conditioning has trouble keeping up in the unusual near 100 degree June heat and humidity.

My fan is an aged but well-preserved Galaxy 16 inch, with a metal cage around its whirring blades. Its sing-songy voice is the effect of its hypnotic turning from side to side. Galaxy makes me think of all those Sixties-era consumer products that played on our fascination with space. As I walk over to take a better look, I notice that the logo has a futuristic wave to it, as if to say, “Buy me and you’ve arrived in the future.” Only now it’s more like back to the future.

It also has the look of that animated lamp in the Pixar logo. Redirect it down and it looks sad; up, buoyant; straight on, steady and reassuring.

Its fan-cage is held together unceremoniously by a blue pipe cleaner, hanging on for dear life. I readjust its arms, tighten it. I’m grateful for the fan’s endurance, its willingness to be forgotten. Most days it hibernates in the darkened attic, called into service on a hot day—a Galaxy reservist, air mover, oscillator. And me, it’s guardian.

The first oscillating fan was invented by German Philip Diehl, in 1907. Diehl first married a sewing machine motor to fan blades in a union that produced a ceiling fan in 1887. Seven years later he added a split-ball joint, allowing it to be redirected. (I know. This is getting technical.) The inventor’s amalgamation mutated into the oscillating fan in 1907—the great great great-grand father of my Galaxy.

In childhood, I spent a couple summers in a rented beach house on Pawleys Island, South Carolina with no air conditioning to speak of—yet under an oscillating fan. At bedtime I lay in a pool of sweat in the hot humid air, becoming remarkably cold as the fan played across sunburned skin, awakening shellacked with dried salt.

When my wife and I first married, we stayed in the un-air-conditioned home of my wife’s parents for a few weeks that first summer. The same Galaxy fan that cools me now pushed air from the far-away Appalachian foothills across paper and pen. It fluttered the pages of my notebook like an incessant child gently saying, “Must you work?” I’d answer by turning toward it, eyes shut, extending my arms and letting the air wash over me. I didn’t know then how far my summery friend would carry me.

I told my wife about my 45-year old fan just now, even thanking the Lord for it in a prayer before sleep. She said, “You mean my fan?” Yes, of course, I answered—your fan. Bless its whirring heart.

I’m Steve West.

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