Some people fall asleep the minute their heads hit the pillow.
I’m not one of them.
I usually toss and turn, replay events over and over in my mind or worry about everything and everyone.
Having a set routine the 30 minutes before bedtime often works to convince my brain it’s time to sleep, but sometimes reading doesn’t do the trick.
A friend suggested downloading white noise onto my phone and using the noise to help me relax.
There are dozens of calming noises on the internet, from the quiet sound of rain falling to cars and taxis on a busy city street for those who prefer a metropolitan mix.
She was right – the sound of the rain was quite relaxing until an Amber alert went off on my cell and rattled my brain back to full awake mode.
Lying there, I found myself remembering the original white-noise generator – the attic fan.
Growing up in Baker, La., there were seven kids in a three-bedroom house, and it was tough to find peace and quiet, especially at bedtime.
That’s when my parents turned on the attic fan.
For those who didn’t grow up with one, an attic fan pulls hot air from the attic and, at the same time, blows cooler air into the house.
I have no idea if the fan saved energy, but the attic fan had one main benefit – the loud, rhythmic pulsing sound the fan made at night was powerful but soothing.
On hot summer nights, we’d lie down in the short hall of the house, shoulder to shoulder, turn on the attic fan and take turns yelling up into the fan and laughing as we heard our voices echo and rumble around overhead.
The only arguments were if we got kicked or someone was taking up too much space. But pretty soon, the loud thumping sound quieted us down, and we were calm in a short amount of time.
On a recent sleepless night, I found myself thinking about that attic fan and the other ways we found to chill in the summer. The handiest way was the plastic sprinkler we got from the hardware store.
The sprinkler was inexpensive, handy and a lot of fun until the yard flooded and we made huge mud holes. We loved sliding through the mud, but our mom wasn’t thrilled about all those muddy clothes.
Our neighborhood had a community pool, and we spent almost every afternoon there as did every kid in Baker Estates, our middle-class neighborhood.
I remember the pool opened up at 11 a.m., and we’d head off on our bikes as soon as “The Young and the Restless” was over.
We stayed at the pool until we were starving, and I don’t remember worrying about the heat as long as we could swim.
Seven kids and the summer break meant extra snacks. Watermelon was our number one choice, but that was only if mom had gone to the grocery store.
Occasionally we’d use the ice-cream maker, but none of us wanted to sit there for an hour and turn the crank. The worst part of home-made ice cream was after all that work, you only got about two cups of ice cream.
The one staple we always had plenty of was Kool-Aid.
My mom bought some plastic Popsicle containers from a Tupperware party one year. We’d carefully fill those up with Kool-Aid at night and the next day slurp those frozen treats up in the heat of the day.
But of all the ways we found to stay cool in the summer, nothing beat that attic fan.
Maybe I’ll give that white noise app another try and see if I can download the sound of an attic fan.
The noises from my childhood might be the perfect ticket to a good nights’ sleep.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.