The Umbrella Tree and The South

Hello and hope you are cooling it inside during the hottest summer on record for North Carolina.  Do you ever wonder how in the world our ancestors stood this kind of heat without air conditioning, only a fan (after the invention of electricity that is!) and a shady tree for cooling off?

How many of you remember going outside in the heat of the day to sit under a shade tree with a "palette" or a quilt and some lemonade, cookies a pillow and the hopes of a cool breeze?

Leave a message if you do!  I remember those days well.  The umbrella tree as my Grandmother Brooks called it.  She didn't have one - but we had them in our neighborhoods everywhere.  Where have all the umbrella trees gone?

Jeanne and Bill Diffee (my parents) on their wedding day.  Jeanne is the daughter of Garland and Belva Brooks