LIVING LIKE WHITE PEOPLE

I live in a really old house. Not by East Coast standards, certainly. But by Kansas standards, it's damn ancient: 1860s. This town was only a few years old when Col. John Wakefield baked a few tons of clay bricks in my backyard and threw together this humble pile.

The colonel will get his own post some day. The old Indian killer. He was a renaissance man without benefit of a renaissance. He was a military spy, an author, a surgeon, a judge, a tavern owner, a framer of this state's constitution, a state treasurer, a friend of Abe Lincoln's, with whom he served in the Illinois Legislature. And a whole bunch of other stuff. By all accounts, he was a Free-Stater, but not an abolitionist, which means he didn't object to enslaving black people so much as he objected to interference with "state's rights." (Sound familiar?)

But I didn't know any of that when I bought this place. All I knew was that of the houses I looked at and could afford, this was the only one — crappy as it was — that was bigger than a matchbook and that was in a relatively decent neighborhood. Historic interest played no role. I got this house because no one else wanted it. I was the lone bidder — OK, idiot — in an otherwise booming real estate market.

But four years later, it's my home. It's gone from a filthy, bat-infested hovel with barely any running water to a comfy little abode with modern amenities. I live in the whole house now, not just one tiny room while the others are under construction. When my friend Rick saw it a few years ago, he said it would be a great place to make a movie about drug addicts. He was trying to put a positive spin on the squalor I was living in, bless his heart. I don't think he'd make the heroin flophouse reference now, unless his script included some better-heeled junkies.

Anyway, the transformation of the house deserves a post of its own — no, a blog of its own. But for now I was just pondering the place and its past because of a major purchase I made Monday: a central air-conditioning unit. I have made many modernizing improvements to the house, but this, the AC, seems like the most significant.

The new water lines were good, to be sure. And the new underground electricity. And the rebuilt window sashes. The new walls were a plus, as was the actual indoor bathroom. And a working washer and dryer. And the kitchen appliances; I'm gaga over my Bosch gas range. But an air conditioner! That is something Col. Wakefield could not have fathomed. That is something that changes your whole way of life.

I didn't get one sooner because I thought of it as a luxury, something I could do without as long as there were other necessities to buy. But this summer I became officially spoiled.

Check out my new unit here. It's worth every one of the 358,000 pennies I spent on it. I can live in the whole house now, not just the room with the noisy, tiny window unit. I can turn on the oven without the temperature soaring to 100 degrees. I can have friends over and feel confident that they're comfortable. I can bathe and not break into a sweat five minutes later. I can watch the dogs doze, cool as cucumbers on the kitchen floor. It's Kansas, for pete's sake. Air conditioning is not a luxury.

According to his obit in the local paper and his online biography, Wakefield died in this house on June 18, 1873. It must have been a hot fuckin' day to die. I picture him suffering in a sweat in what is now my dining room until he finally expired of "gravel," or what we call kidney stones. Can you even imagine? I'm sure a light bulb would have struck him as nifty and a dishwasher would have tickled his fancy. But central air? That would really impress a man dying in excruciating pain on a summer day.

My dad, who I like to think would have been a Wakefield in his day — a bumbling old racist with a core of decency and a lust for life — has always been dubious about my home-restoration project. He couldn't see the charm, just the inconvenience. Just the moldy plaster and the ancient plumbing and the Dumpsters full of debris. He's come around a little, but his occasional greeting used to be, "When are you going to start living like white people?" which became a running joke between me and my girlfriend, who was gracious enough to see through the veneer of his bigotry.

I've learned how the thermostat works now, but the other day I had it so cold in here that I found myself wishing the house had one of its original fireplaces. Then I could crank the AC in summer and light a fire just for atmosphere, just like doddering old Nixon did in the White House while the country fell apart.

God help me, I've arrived!