Thoughts From the Front Porch

Elvis Presley's Convair 880

Whatever else can be said about Elvis Presley’s mansion at Graceland, you gotta admit there’s nothing like it anywhere else.  Elvis used his money to surround himself with exactly what he wanted, not what some snooty designer told him was aesthetically correct.  His followers consider the place a shrine, a fact that was proven to me in no uncertain terms.

My now-ex and I toured the place back in the 80’s, not long after the King died.   We did a whole economy package, including Graceland, Heartbreak Hotel Cafe, Elvis’ road tour bus, his Convair 880 four engine jet airliner and Lockheed JetStar business plane.   We experienced his unique taste in decor everywhere we looked.

To be perfectly honest, the whole shebang was as tacky as it comes.  Those jets and tour bus were tricked out like mobile houses of pleasure, with emphasis on gaudy.  All three would have been right at home in Tijuana.   But the best was yet to come; the mansion.

I’ve never seen so many mirrors in my life.  There was a couch about thirty feet long in one great-room.   His Jungle Room was decked out with various spotted & striped animal hides, its ceiling covered with a huge array of multicolored carpet wedges.

As our tour group filed down an entrance foyer and into the main living room, it was like a funeral procession.  Hardly any noise other than a quiet shuffling of feet, very much like you’d hear as mourners pass a casket just prior to interment.  No words above a whisper; even our guide spoke in soft, somber tones.  Many of these folks were actually sniffling, and I don’t think it was allergies.

I had done my best to control my emotions throughout out pilgrimage but, upon catching sight of that couch and all those mirrors, it was just too much for me.   Unable to contain myself any longer, I busted out laughing.

The harder I tried to stifle it, the louder I laughed, as words like “cathouse”, “Bubba” , and “Kmart”  flooded my brain.  My wife hissed orders to shut the hell up then, realizing it was futile, pretended she didn’t know me.  All the other women gave me looks of pure disgust, like I had committed an act of callous sacrilege.  Our tour guide was not happy either, as her carefully-crafted atmosphere had been shattered beyond repair.

In fact, the only friends I had that day were a couple of guys who, like me, had gotten themselves roped into touring the Presley Inner Sanctum.

Views From Benny Hill is a series by Jerry Smith

Views From Benny Hill

It’s a term we’ve heard a lot lately, usually applied to our valiant ancestors who survived the Great Depression, went into battle and kicked the Axis’ tail during World War II, then came home victorious to help pave the way for the most prosperous decades of American history. But how can we really define greatness;  what made them different from their own forebears, or the generations that followed?

If we assume it takes large portions of courage, bravery, intelligence, strength and perseverance, then these folks definitely qualify. But those qualities still exist today, however well-masked by these pitiful times. To truly appreciate the source of their greatness, we need to look at how people lived in those days.

It’s said that the finest steel comes from the hottest forge. I doubt any generation ever rose up through tougher times. The War of 1914-1918, aka The Great War, War To End All Wars , or World War I,  produced a fine stock of battle-hardened forebears.  They returned home with a great victory and quietly began raising families, only to find themselves in the grip of the Great Depression just as those families were reaching young adulthood.

This new generation faced an economic plague of unimaginable deprivation. Many did not survive, but those who did emerged with a new strength & resolve that can only come from battling the worst and living to tell about it. Today’s so-called major problems would have been little more than mere nuisances to people of that caliber.  They would have quickly and efficiently dealt with them all.  Enduring hardship and conquering the unacceptable was in their nature.

Thence cometh World War II. America’s enemies were once again clearly defined; their intentions unmistakable. Our parents and grandfolks once again rose to the occasion, and once again they excelled and came home as heroes, rightly so. Each had enough war stories to keep the rest of us enthralled and justifiably envious of their valor.

National pride was at an all-time high, for these Yanks had licked half the world in the name of everything they cherished, many of them for the second time.

War is scary stuff.  Even the most patriotic volunteers would still have been fearful, making me wonder why so many went “over there” anyway. Tens of thousands went because they were drafted.   But, unlike later generations, we’ve heard few stories of deserters and draft evaders in that era.  Many others went because making war for good cause was in their nature, like the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord. If the truth be fully known, the armed services probably offered a better deal for many than they were getting at home.

We were still largely a rural populace in those days.  Farm labor is hard and boring; factory work & mining were no real bargains either. The military at least gave them a break from backbreaking, tedious routine.   Then there’s always a certain percentage of folks who simply do not thrive in everyday life situations. The war offered them an opportunity for real accomplishment and recognition.

Whatever the reasons, Americans rose to the occasion, with the full support of their countrymen and Allies. They were a seasoned, hardened bunch of survivors whose latest assignment was just another ordeal in a long line of stressful situations that we cannot imagine without having lived them ourselves.  These people simply took it all in stride and did what they felt was right.

Those who remained behind also found a new resolve: do everything humanly possible to support their troops overseas and keep our flag flying proudly back home. They openly hated and berated the enemy because he was trying to kill their loved ones and take over a free country, and because our finest were over there instead of home.

These loyal civilians worked overtime to produce what was needed to defeat the enemy’s purpose.  They sacrificed luxuries, grew their own gardens for food, walked instead of drove so there would be fuel for military use, organized home guards in case the enemy made it as far as their homeland, became civilian plane spotters, and performed countless other duties of a concerned populace under fire.

I recently attended a concert featuring a forever-young lady, 80+ years of age, who had traveled all over the States and Europe with a USO troupe.  She and her companions brought a little bit of home to those fighting forces, encouraging them, and reinforcing their resolve.  As I listened to her piano music and watched her perform, it occurred to me that she was also a hero; another integral part of something so immense and wonderful that we must also include her as one of the Great Ones.

You could literally see the inner strength in her face and feel her magnetism as she belted out dozens of tunes that were popular in that era.  Indeed, those songs themselves were also part of the greatness; songs that refreshed and inspired those going in harm’s way with promises of unequivocal support back home and a glorious new world at peace when it was all over.

More than sixty years later this remarkable lady’s music worked its wondrous effect on this new audience, regardless of our age or hers.  One can only guess  what memories were stirred that night.  Many openly wept, and sang along as best they could.

What a pity  those who’ve protected our interests in later conflicts have not been afforded the same glory and acceptance by their own peers.  It reflects badly upon all of us.

Only the great can recognize greatness.  It’s mostly gone now; not from our soldiers, but from those for whom they die.

Views From Benny Hill is a series by Jerry Smith

Views From Benny Hill

Something urged me to rise out of bed at 0500, rather than the usual 0630-0800 I’ve enjoyed since retiring more than ten years ago.  It’s like I was going to miss out on something special if I waited a minute longer.   My usual leisurely routine was put on hold as I stepped out on the back porch to check out the day’s weather.

The chilly, pre-dawn air was rich with musky dewiness.  Whitish-orange light reflected upon the sky from somewhere barely over the horizon, causing a pale, ground-hugging fog to slightly glow as it lay in smoky layers in the hollers and valleys behind my home.  Turning to my hummingbird feeders, I saw that one had been completely drained despite bring filled late the previous afternoon.  It was my largest feeder, with one-litre capacity and six stations.

I went back inside and got a gallon jug of fresh nectar from the refrigerator. They’re currently consuming about three gallons a week.  As I removed the feeder’s jar and started to fill it,  the air around me began to thicken with hummingbirds, at least fifteen or twenty of them.  But this morning instead of re-hanging the feeder, I simply stood there holding it in my outstretched hand, as I occasionally do.

Almost immediately I was swarmed with hungry, grateful hummers, one at each feed station with others lined up awaiting their turn.  As they became more accustomed to my presence and their obvious hunger emboldened them even more than usual, I gradually drew the feeder closer until it was mere inches from my face.    What a wondrous sight it was!

About a dozen of these little emerald-colored marvels of evolution were all around me, the wind from their wings sweeping across my face, hair, and bare arms as they jostled each other for a turn at the nozzles.  At least as  many more were in a holding pattern only a few feet away, while others darted in & out among the trees. It reminded me of the five oclock rush hour at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport.

Their usual territorialism had been put on hold, probably because my own presence overshadowed any threat they may have felt from each other.  Unlike hummers’ usual pattern of fighting over rights to every feeder in sight, these birds were in a total feeding frenzy.  Several  alpha males hovered a few inches away at eye level, staring at me with fearless, tiny black eyes and flashing iridescent red and orange throats while twittering defiantly as if I were merely a larger version of themselves, the biggest alpha bird in the neighborhood.

It was truly an enjoyable experience that probably would never have occurred had I lingered in bed until full daylight.   Hummingbirds are some of the most remarkable, exquisite creatures on Earth, in any kind of light.  Their colors and the way they flash them changes with every new hour of the day, every week, and with every instinctive posture.  To see buzzing, humming, twittering clouds of them boldly swarming around one’s head against a pre-dawn backdrop of morning fog is about as good as it gets in this life.  No picture can do it justice; you just have to be there, and be the one holding the feeder.

But this spectacle also brought a touch of regret.  The fact they are no longer battling over feeders means they have no more nests to build in St Clair this year, and are all preparing to head south as soon as they fatten up a bit.  And, I have to wonder how many of these little jewels will survive their six hundred mile, non-stop journey over the Gulf of Mexico from Dauphin Island to Yucatan.  Because of the rigors of their lifestyles, few hummers live for more than two or three years.

Everyone’s heard of swan songs; it saddens me to realize that a few of them are probably singing the hummingbird version this morning.

Views From Benny Hill is a series by Jerry Smith

Views From Benny Hill

Here’s an interesting experiment:  fill a large plastic bag with air from your living room and twist it shut. Then take it outdoors, stick a tube in it, and hook the other end of the tube to the input of an air compressor with a small, removable tank.  Run the compressor until the bag goes flat.  You will notice that the compressor tank has become a bit heated up by the air becoming compressed.

Let it cool off to normal temperature, then take the compressor tank indoors.   Release the valve and let the compressed air escape into the room, noting that it gets very cool as it escapes and also makes water condense around the nozzle.  Now carry the tank back outdoors and wipe off the condensation.

Congratulations! You’ve just performed one complete cycle of room air conditioning.  Repeat this process enough times, and the room air will become cooler and dryer.

Of course this ridiculous example has no practical value, but it does demonstrate exactly what happens when your air conditioner kicks on.  The AC repeats this cycle continuously until your room air has been chilled to the temperature you selected, with a very comfortable drop in humidity as well.

Any fluid, be it air or water or Freon, loses or gains a tremendous amount of heat as it changes state from liquid to vapor and back again. The trick is to make it gain heat indoors and lose it outdoors.

Your air conditioner’s closed plumbing system is a continuous loop, filled with a fluid that changes state easily within its temperature range of operation.  In most cases the fluid is Freon, but other fluids such as ammonia or even ordinary air will work depending on how the mechanism is designed.  Now let’s follow this fluid as it makes it way through the cycle we’ve just demonstrated.

We’ll start with the compression part; Freon vapor has made its way through sealed tubing from inside your home to that big, noisy monolith sitting in your back yard.   Upon entering a very powerful pump, this vapor is squeezed into much smaller volume, getting real hot in the process.  This heat must be removed.

From the pump, the hot vapor passes into a condenser, which is the coils with black metal fins visible behind the grill of the outside unit.  A large fan draws outdoor air through these coils, cooling the vapor inside and causing it to change to a liquid state, giving up a tremendous amount of heat in the process.  That’s why the air blowing out the top is so hot.

This condensed vapor, now a liquid, is pumped back into your home through another tube into a device called an evaporator. It’s the shiny aluminum & copper A-frame you see when you change the air filter on some units.    As the fluid enters the evaporator area under high pressure, it passes through a tiny hole called an orifice.   As it passes through this final restriction, it enters an area of much lower pressure on the other side of the orifice, and that’s where the magic happens.

Whether a fluid is in liquid or gaseous state depends on two things; temperature and pressure.  Upon passing through the orifice into lower pressure, the Freon instantly evaporates.  Remember how our experimental compressed air got colder when we let it expand?  Well, that’s exactly what’s going on here.  The Freon has once again changed state and, in doing so, it must take on heat from somewhere.

It gets this heat of evaporation from those shiny metal coils and makes them very cold, even icy, as a result of heat loss. The low-pressure Freon vapor now makes its way through tubing back outside to the compressor, and our cycle is complete.

A fan blows air from inside your home over the evaporator coil, picking up the coil’s coolness and adding it to your room air (actually, it loses heat, but it’s easier to imagine it picking up cool).  As this room air is circulated over those cold coils its humidity condenses on them, thereby drying the air as a lucky coincidence of operation.

The condensate water drips into a collection area and drains through a pipe to the outdoors, which is why window air conditioners always drip.  (I pipe this free water to my birdbath, keeping it full all summer, but that’s another story)

A few points need to be made.  For one, the huge volume of heat dissipated by that big noisy fan comes mostly from the compression process, not heat picked up the vapor as it passes through the evaporator.  The compression/expansion cycle really doesn’t care where it gets its heat as long as it happens at the right pressure and in the right part of the cycle.

Also, an air conditioner doesn’t even need electricity to operate, other than for the fan that moves your room air through the evaporator and for control operations.   It only has one moving part, the compressor, which can be turned by any mechanical input, be it a steam engine, gasoline motor, or even a windmill.   On early train cars, the compressor was operated by train wheels as they rolled over the rails.

In fact, compression can even be created by the heat of a small gas flame, as in those old Servel gas refrigerators whose only moving part was the door hinge. It’s all just a matter of exchanging one kind of energy for another.

A third point is that the factor of dehumidification is a freebie, an accident of process that makes conditioned air much more comforting.

And finally,  never worry that your AC is struggling in the summer heat. Regardless of temperature, they work pretty much the same all the time.  It’s actually just a side benefit that your home is made comfortable as a result.  April or August, it doesn’t really care where it gets its heat or where it loses it.  Your power bill only goes up because the AC has to run longer to satisfy your thermostat setting.

Pretty cool, huh?

Views From Benny Hill is a series by Jerry Smith

Views From Benny Hill