Mike Couick
I will be the first to admit that I enjoy my home’s air conditioning very much. I’ve been enjoying it even more since—thanks to the advice of an independent energy auditor—I recently had my home’s “thermal envelope” improved with weatherization and installed a more efficient HVAC system. My monthly electric bill took a significant nosedive. I encourage you to reach out to your cooperative to see what programs and services they offer to help your family.
Heating and cooling often make up at least half of a typical home’s power costs, but that wasn’t always the case. Before mechanical climate control, many in the South relied on mother nature and innovative architectural designs for respite from heat and humidity. Homes and their porches were positioned and placed strategically to take full advantage of crosswinds and afternoon shade.
For example, dogtrot houses—which originated in South Carolina’s Lowcountry—were built with a breezeway that ran through the center leading to the porch in the back. This created differential pressure and increased windspeed as it passed through the house, making it much cooler. However, that kind of openness could also lead to some invited and annoying guests, like flies and mosquitoes.
During the Great Depression, a New Deal program called the Federal Writers’ Project put writers, teachers and researchers to work interviewing folks from all walks of life. Their objective was to pull together the history and folklore of our nation. On one project, interviewees were asked to name the single greatest invention of their lifetime. Radio and motor vehicles were common answers, but one straight-speaking farmer offered something unexpected: screen wire. No doubt this farmer and his family found sleeping much easier without a swirl of gnats and mosquitoes and dining much more enjoyable without flies hanging around their fried chicken.
When I heard this story for the first time, I immediately thought of all the good times I spent on my family’s screened porches. When I was growing up, the back porch was the meeting place in the late afternoon—about the time the bull bats came out. There would be three or four generations of us shelling butterbeans or peeling peaches, protected from flying insects and cooled by the evening breeze.
As a youngster, I listened while my relatives shared stories and truths. Someone from the Federal Writers’ Project should have been there with us. Some of the stories were tales we’d all heard before. I remember my dad would always elicit knowing nods from the others when he recounted experiences like feeding the chickens through floor cracks of the tenant farmhouse where he grew up.
Other stories were unexpected laments and confessions. They were about struggles that weighed heavy on the teller’s heart. Because their hands were occupied, their minds were free to associate things happening in their lives and to share them with the people they loved.
When neighbors came by, the porch remained the place to gather comfortably and catch up. It’s not hard to imagine that in some communities, the seeds of rural electrification took root in such a fertile environment, as neighbors encouraged neighbors to join the burgeoning movement.
I rarely see people on their porches anymore. That’s understandable, since escaping uncomfortable elements is so easy to do now. Electric cooperatives can certainly claim some of the credit or blame for that. Much of the progress our state has enjoyed over the last 80 years is directly attributable to rural electrification.
I hope the intimate connections we once felt with family members and neighbors as we were surrounded by screen wire have not been lost to wireless communication and digital screens. I hope the ability to digitally multitask isn’t distracting us from what is really important.
As broadband availability reaches more people in rural communities and we implement innovations and efficiencies to make our homes more pleasant and affordable, I encourage us to be mindful of ways that we can still reach beyond our front doors and share ourselves with one another.