The house was on blocks and probably 1200 square feet

The house was on blocks and probably 1200 square feet. It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room and a kitchen with a breezeway to the single car garage. The driveway was shell and the garage floor was dirt. Above the centrally located bathroom was an attic fan. The way an attic fan works is that it sucks air from the living space and blows it into the attic where it exits through vents in the gables. The air comes into the living space via the windows. That air is blown out of the attic helps somewhat with cooling, but wow, Beaumont summers with endless 95 degF temperatures were brutal. The total house airflow is a zero sum game. If I opened my window to get a little more air, my added air would be subtracted proportionally from every other window. As a result my dad was a window gap Nazi. We could not open our windows even a millimeter more than about 2 inches without bringing down the wrath of the window gap Nazi on our heads. So the rules in this house included not being outside in the ‘heat of the day’, noon ‘til 2. Mostly, after lunch I would lie in my bed with my 2” window opening to get a cooling breeze and read or doze. Not too bad, really.