Beating the Heat in Old Sparrows Point

For thirty years I lived on the California coast where there are no extremes of hot and cold weather. Occasionally I would think about moving back to Maryland, only to be brought up short by memories of the sweltering hot summers when I was growing up in Sparrows Point.

Summertime in Sparrows Point in the 1960s was like, well, like living in a blast furnace. If you looked around at all the fiery workings of the steel plant and the red-hot steel on rail cars, then looked up at the black steel towers and smoke stacks, then farther up to the hot sky and sun, it was easy to imagine it all as one big, hot oven with Sparrows Point in the middle.

In summertime the TV volume was turned up and everyone spoke louder than normal because with the windows opened, all the noises of the steel plant poured into the house. If that weren't enough whirring and humming you could turn on an electric fan to circulate the heat, noise and mill dirt throughout the house.

If you couldn't move enough air past yourself, you could move yourself through the air on a bicycle, preferably down hill. The Annex (which had been the high school and was to become the elementary school) was a great place to ride because it sat up on the level of D street with steep slopes descending to the level of F street. You could ride like the wind down those slopes and if you got up enough speed, you could get back up the hills without too much trouble.

Thirsty? There were no fewer than three outdoor water fountains around the Annex, and they all worked unless there was a rock stuck under the foot pedal.

Sometimes hot water out of a fountain wasn't satisfactory. There were three places in Sparrows Point where a kid could get a refrigerated drink of water. At the dispensary north of F street there was a refrigerated water fountain –and cups!. If an adult was visible when you went in, you could ask permission to get a drink. Otherwise you had to re-use your permission from last time.

Just inside the back door of the main office there was a refrigerated fountain. There was no one to ask for permission in the main office. If you saw an adult, you just had to act like you owned the place. The police station on 9th street had a refrigerated fountain. No way to be stealthy here. There was always an officer seated at the desk right across from the fountain.

But the officer always granted permission for a kid to have a cold drink.

Night fell and it didn't get any cooler. We kids played in the alley. As it became darker we gravitated more and more to the single street light in the middle of the alley. At last when it was quite dark and parents started calling kids home (yelling, not texting), it finally began to become not quite so swelteringly hot.

At the age of 56, I did move back to Maryland and you know what? It's really not all that bad. Here in the 21st century all the houses and cars are air-conditioned. Insulation is much better than in the plaster-and-lath houses of Sparrows Point. You really don't spend very much time out in the elements.

Back then we lived very much in the elements most of the time. We experienced first hand, and survived, the worst extremes of temperature.

Was it better that way? I think a kid should learn to experience the world and its weather up close and personal. But at age 56, I'll gladly take the air conditioning. Sweltering in the heat is better experienced as a fond memory of growing up in Sparrows Point.