Not a fan.

A friend of mine, a football enthusiast, when asked if he is a Giant fan, likes to say that he is actually a small air conditioner. 

I thought of that joke when I saw this by a neighbor's trash can.

Maybe that fan stand no longer works, but it looked like a nifty thing to me. As a cook who has set off the smoke alarms on multiple occasions, I could use something like that. Those three fans would clear the room faster than everyone's favorite fictional jazz group, the Fred Key Trio!

From the mind of Mike "Flangepart" Weller

I think a fan stand like that would have been helpful in my childhood, when we lived in the city and had no air conditioning. I do not miss that. The box fans helped, but you basically had to stay right in front of them. The three-fan unit would have covered the room, I think, circulating the air in every corner.

It was years before Dad got a window A/C unit, for use only in the master bedroom and only at night. We kids slept on the floor of the room. Later, as the price for energy and the units themselves came down, the other bedrooms got A/C -- but still only at night. 

All the houses around here have central air, and I wonder if that led to the three-fan unit being thrown away. The family is new to the neighborhood, after all. "No need for you, fans! We have central air now!" 

I'd ask them, but it never looks good to ask someone about their garbage. I'd rather write about it here, in public.

I would not have parted with the fans. On several occasions in this house we have found ourselves suddenly without air conditioning -- when we moved in and the weather got hot and we found out the condenser had never been hooked up; when the cheap unit that came with the house completely crapped out; and when we discovered recently that the replacement unit had been leaking coolant for years because it was installed improperly. All these things were unexpected.

Just saying that, while there are many things I am nostalgic for from the days of my youth, nights with no air conditioning are not among them.