Heat Waves and Cold Showers. (Timeline: 1950s & 1960s, Present)

The recent heat wave, and the need to take frequent, cool showers, made me think of the summers in Denmark. The heating system and the hot water in our apartment building depended entirely on viceværten (literal translation: "Vice Landlord"; the closest in American terms would probably be "building super".) The building, which had 12 stairwells with 10 units in each, plus several businesses in the cellars, was heated via hot water radiators. The water in the radiators, as well as the hot water we bathed in etc. all came from a HUGE boiler in the cellar. There might have been several such boilers; I only remember the one; located close to our "opgang" (literal: "up walk"; i.e. stairwell). It was the job of viceværten to keep the boiler stoked with coal around the clock. Truckloads of coal were delivered frequently, and everything was set up pretty efficiently, at least by the methods available back then. All us kids were a bit afraid of viceværten; he'd holler at us all the time when we were playing in the open space in the center of the building.

Viceværten did not have a helper; at least not that I ever knew. We had the same man all the time I grew up, and he had a son named John, about my age. Of course viceværten had to have a vacation every year, so for an entire month every summer we had no hot water. The radiator was no problem in the summer, and we could always heat water on the stove to wash dishes and faces, but those showers! Brrrrrrr......

We didn't have a bathtub. The tiny bathroom consisted of a shower; a wash bowl, a mirror and a shelf for our tooth brushes etc. It had been retro-fitted in a corner of the kitchen before I was born, and since my family took showers often, we seemed to always have problems with the floor leaking. We had the floor redone several times that I can remember. The toilet was located off a corner of the bedroom, and was only a toilet; no wash bowl.



The above picture is from Microsoft Virtual Earth and shows my apartment building as it looks now. The half building shown on the right belonged to the same landlord, and I think was also serviced by our vicevært. The arrow shows the window to our living room. The windows in the kitchen and bedroom and the tiny one in the toilet all opened out to "gården"; the open space in the middle of the building. When I grew up, there was a huge "guldregn" (literal: Gold Rain") tree in the middle of gården; it was taller than the building! I am not sure what the American name for guldregn is, but here is a picture of a guldregn tree: