Washday--Now and Then

Timeline: March 2008. I gather up all my soiled clothes, drop them in a shiny white machine, add a little powdered detergent, push a button and close the cover. In twenty minutes, I open the cover, transfer the clothes to another shiny white machine, pick up the latest novel and read for an hour. A bell rings and I open the second machine, take out my clothes, and hang them on their hangers. My wash is done. I'm ready for another week.

Timeline: March 1928. I'm five years old. Mom is doing the wash. Dad has brought in the big oblong copper tub and filled it with water on the iron stove top . Mom drops in a 2-inch chunk of yellow soap (the soap she made from lye and bacon grease.) She gets the big wooden paddle dad has carved for just this purpose, and as he gets the water boiling, she drops in all of our soiled clothes and begins stirring the heavy load.

When she figures it's time, she ladles the soapy water into the sink, and replaces it with clear water. To this she adds bluing from the bottle, and begins boiling the clothes again. When this water is ladled out, the clothes are lifted into another tub, and she begins threading each piece of clothing through a wringer (a set of rubber rolls in a contraption fastened to this tub. To make them go through the wringer, someone has to turn the handle, so she and I take turns wringing.

Then comes the good part: we carry the basket of wrung-out clothing outside to the clothesline. This is great--in summer! In winter--Hell frozen over! Your fingers turn to painful slivers of ice, and then so numb you don't feel them anymore. You can't wear mittens--they would freeze to the wet clothes or the line. At last the clothes are hung and they freeze into all kinds and shapes of frozen boards, where they bang together like drums in a percussion concert. While they dry--which actually does happen, even though they are frozen--I have time to go inside and get warm and perhaps have a bowl of yummy hot oatmeal before putting on that darn bulky snowsuit and head off to school.