“The Fan” by Byron Bloemer
August’s thick summer swelter seeped into our one thousand square foot house. Never with air conditioning. Six of us kids dripped and drooped, though the sun had set two hours earlier. It was 1974. Once the veneered coffee table was shoved aside, we sprawled out nightly to sleep on the blue carpeted living room floor in front of our only fan.
The rusting box fan became our small god, its breeze a savior. Who would get to lay with their head closest? I turned the plastic dial on top of the metal frame from “off” to “high.” The steel blades lurched forward a quarter turn and predictably faltered. I stood and dragged myself to the bathroom. I reached into the medicine cabinet, which was missing half of its mirror, and retrieved my toothbrush. With the worn bristles splayed in my unwashed palm, I slid it between the slight bars of the fan’s somewhat protective front grate. I pressed the handle against the sharp edge of a blade and gave it a clockwise push. It whined a bit and conceded a half turn. I thrust my toothbrush along the grate’s bars again, harder, hoping for a full rotation or two. It puttered out. Come on.
With a half dozen tries and a prayer, the motor caught enough momentum to somehow run itself for the long night. Once in full motion, its whining stopped, and the blades quietly churned out a satisfying wind. I laid my head down, inches from those of my two sisters and three brothers. We configured ourselves like the blades, heads close to the machine with our expectant bodies fanned out from there.
One morning, we ventured out to our once-a-year, new-school-clothes shopping extravaganza. It netted me the usual six pairs of Hanes underwear, six pairs of Fruit of the Loom tube socks, three Levi’s pants, five mixed shirts, and one pair of sneakers. All had to last through the next August when I’d nearly turn nine. I saw a new box fan near the check-out counter and thought, those must be so expensive.
Byron Bloemer holds a Ph.D. in counseling psychology and practiced psychotherapy for 25 years. He was the proprietor of two mental health clinics serving over a thousand patients per week. Byron earned a master's certificate in creative nonfiction writing, editing and publishing from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2026. He has published 150 columns on mental health topics in the Milwaukee area. Byron is available for writen content and public speaking regarding creating meaning and inspiration in a world of noise.