Imagine a cellar with clothes piled twice as high as you. Imagine a washing machine that groans and moans as it twists and turns the clothes within. Imagine a little girl helping her mom get through the mound of clothes so everyone would have clean socks, underwear and outfits to wear to school. Laundry day was a ritual that arrived with great regularity. The clothes pile was sometimes used as a hiding place by brother Ron. The tune of the machine would drone on and on as each load was selected by color, fabric, and necessity. The washing part was mundane but what I always loved was the ‘hanging of the clothes.’
There was the straw basket with clothes wet and heavy, distorted in shape, varied in size. There was the clothesline, hung between two trees waiting to be dressed. And did we dress it. With our handful of clothespins we would pull up a garment and hang it neatly on the rope. On a good day I would try to organize shirts together, pants together, pajamas and the parade of socks that seem to have no end. The wind would toss the clothes about and blow into the arms and pants making them look like headless people. The socks would do a jitterbug, going in every direction and the underwear would range in size from tiny little to large and extra large. You can tell an awfully lot by the clothes hanging on a line. Are there children, are there babies, is it a working man or a 9-5 office type that supply the line? A whole story could be drawn from the wind blown participants of outdoor drying.
Then, when the clothes were collected, they smelled so good. The outdoor, fresh air, woodsy, smell of summer days would permeate into our noses. The sheets would carry that fragrance right into our bedrooms. I really missed those hang to dry days.
In winter it was a different story. The hands would get so cold from hanging wet clothes. The wind would cooperate but the temp froze the clothes into flat cardboard shapes and the socks would have to be thawed under the hissing of the steam radiators. A time gone by, a time remembered with fondness. Would I trade my automatic dryer for a clothesline? Never!
The laundry machine I remember was a two stage old tub that had
ReplyDeletetwo speeds slow and fast. Once the clothes were washed we had to rinse them thru a double roller type ringer that squeezed out both the suds and the water. We would always be short of clothespins because we had other uses for them. Like putting them on our nose and talking funny to each other. We had so much fun with each other in the dysfunction. Laugh Laugh Laugh to our hearts content.