Upstairs Heat and True Genius.

Bounding up the old staircase with the reckless abandonment reserved for those not yet afflicted with arthritic knees, backs, necks, and hips, my brother and I would race to the top where our private sanctuary awaited our never-ending imaginations. It was there in the hot summer nights that we rolled out our most creative endeavors.

The house on Cedar was old, old for even those days, and like most old homes in Wallace, we did not have air conditioning, As a matter of fact, we didn't even have a car that had an air conditioner until I was a sophomore in high school. Air was a luxury reserved for the wealthy, and even though Dad made ok money, he would always tell us that we were poor.

The heat in the upstairs rooms on those muggy late July and August nights was never a deterrent to the unbridled fertile imaginations of two growing boys.We would simply plug in an old decrepit fan and proceed with whatever activity we had in mind. One time when she was a bit younger, my brother's step daughter asked him with all sincerity about how we survived those days with no computer, cell phones, smartphones, and on and on. His answer blew her young mind away." We used our imaginations.

And that is how we grew up Wallace,

 The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
Albert Einstein.

Wow, we must have been geniuses.