RIVER CITY JOURNAL: HERE'S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU CAN'T SLEEP

There are sounds of the night that come in open windows. Think back to the days before air conditioning. Remember?

You don't need to hear me say it, but it's hot.

I don't know about you, but I don't tolerate hot.

Or humidity.

I used to hear people talk about how you don't notice the heat if there isn't any humidity. These are the people who sing the praises of Arizona's desert climate.

I went to Arizona once. Thanks to two young sons, we had a two-day family outing in the Petrified Forest. Have you ever been there? It's hot.

While we were roaming among the fallen tree trunks that are now like big chunks of rock, I kept thinking to myself: See, it's 120-something in the shade -- if any of these trees had limbs or leaves -- and you don't feel it, do you?

What I could feel was this sensation of crusting on every exposed part of my body as my perspiration evaporated. I felt like a walking salt shaker.

So, I said to myself, this is what it's like to live in Arizona. Great place, if you like sliced tomatoes.

Which I do. Golly, I love sliced tomatoes fresh from the garden. Somebody else's garden, of course.

I'd grow a few tomato plants myself if there were just one place in our yard with good sunshine. On the other hand, why deprive all those other gardeners of the joys of sharing? That's my philosophy: Give all your extra tomatoes to me. I'll see that they don't go to waste.

The other day I was sitting in the fancy chair my barber has for his customers. We're about the same age, and we were exchanging stories about growing up without air conditioning.

The thermostat on the wall in the barbershop was probably set on about 70 degrees, so it was nice and cool as we talked about surviving pre-AC.

We remembered things like the shade of an elm tree. Nowadays, shade is highly underrated, and there's hardly a decent elm left standing.

We remembered the oscillating electric fans that would blow on you for a second and then turn to blow on someone else before turning back to blow on you again.

We remembered trying to go to sleep in houses cooled by wide-open windows, relying on the Almighty to stir up a storm so a breeze -- any kind of breeze -- would get into the bedroom. And how you laid on the bed without moving a muscle for fear of breaking into a sweat. And you stayed that way until suddenly it was nearly morning and you were cold and you tried to find the sheets and blanket without opening your eyes.

We remembered snow cones, which I notice are making a comeback.

We remembered garden hoses in the yard spraying refreshing cold water all over you. And everything else.

We remembered when only drugstores and movie theaters had air conditioning. Or refrigerated air, as the sign on the door would say.

We remembered the first time our parents got air conditioning. That's something you remember like other major events: JFK's assassination and air conditioning. The first Sputnik and air conditioning. "The Ed Sullivan Show" and air conditioning.

There is one thing I miss about the hot nights with the windows wide open and the only breeze coming from an oscillating fan at the foot of the bed. I miss the sounds of night. Particularly the night sounds on a farm.

First would come the tree frogs. Just about the time you were about to drift off to sleep, the frogs would hush. You might hear a screech owl in the woods across the valley. Or the tires of the neighbor's car on the gravel road a mile away. But there would come a moment, just as you were really dropping off into slumber, when the familiar sound I miss most of all would drift into the window:

Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill.

The call of the whippoorwill has to be just about the most soothing sound on the face of the Earth.

Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill.

Just thinking about it makes me sleepy.

Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill.

I haven't heard a whippoorwill in ages. You can't hear anything outside our house with the windows closed and the air conditioning humming.

You know what? I might be willing to spend a night in the summer heat if I could be lulled to sleep by that magic call.

Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill. Whippoorwill.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.