The hot summer we had in North Carolina in 2007 brought back memories of the hot summer of 1953.  I was twenty years old and a junior at The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C.  My husband and I had just married and moved into the married students trailer park.  The trailer park, owned by the University, was established shortly after World War II mostly for returning service men who were married and going to school on the GI Bill.  The married students with children lived elsewhere on campus in married family quarters then called "VictoryVillage".

My father-in-law , since deceased, purchased us a house trailer about ten years old, measuring 8 feet wide by 18 feet long.  It had a living room, kitchen combination and a small bedroom.  There was an icebox with a sign  which we put in the window twice a week to tell the iceman how much ice to put in the ice compartment.  It held a maximum of 25 pounds of ice.  It had a second compartment in which we put food to cool.  We had no bathroom, washer,dryer, air-conditioner, or TV.  There was a communal  bathhouse  which everyone used.  It had commodes, showers and washers.  I do not remember there being any dryers.  Most of the couples hung their clothes on an outside  clothes  line to dry.

     Being newlyweds, we were very happy to have a place of our own.  Since trailer lots were at a premium, we felt lucky to have gotten a space.  There were 20-30 trailers in University park, It was located on the outskirts of main campus.

     That summer, I was going to summer school studying chemistry in the basement of Venable hall.  With 30 Bunsen burners on and no windows, it was hot as Hades during the chemistry lab sessions.  UNC has always had a beautiful central campus.  After class or lab was over, I'd walk home to fix my lunch.  It was always wonderful walking back to the trailer through all the large trees and enjoying the shade and breezes.

     That summer, the temperatures ranged from the mid-nineties to 105 degrees.  In our trailer, we had one fan, gray, shaped  like a three  legged stool.  We'd open the windows, turn on our only fan and make the best of it.  My father-in-law gave us vegetables from his garden.  He grew large delicious tomatoes and all summer we had tomatoes to eat.

     I'd walk back to the trailer, make a couple of large tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, a large glass of southern ice tea, sit on the gray fan and have lunch.  I think I ate the same thing every school day that summer.  It was so hot and the tomatoes and tea were so cool and delicious.  In the fifty or more years since, I've never eaten a tomato sandwich with iced tea, without thinking of sitting on the gray fan that hot summer of 1953.

     My husband and I made many life long friends those years, many who are now gone and many now scattered throughout the country.  Despite the intense heat that year, I doubt that we or any of our  fellow married students have ever had a more beneficial or enjoyable summer.

Postscript:  After we graduated our trailer was moved behind our father-in-law's house at 607 Martin Luther King Blvd ,Chapel Hill, N.C., updated and rented to UNC students regularly until just recently.  The trailer park space was replaced by the UNC School of Public Health building.