Monday Wash Day
Today is Monday, Today is Monday … Monday wash day, all you hungry brothers we wish the same to you.
For some reason as I loaded my first batch of laundry into my oversized washing mac
hine today I had a flash back to my mother doing laundry when I was just a little girl. I can’t imagine the work involved in keeping clothes clean for a family of six who lived on a farm. I can actually remember her using this type of wringer washer and using a wash board to work on the stains. You will note there isn’t an agitator attached to this nifty washing machine … the agitator was Mom. First comes the job of filling the tub with hot water and suds … then washing each piece of clothing by hand. Mom would wring them by hand as best she could and then she would put them through the wringer to get out as much water as possible before they went into the rinse cycle, which was also a tub of hot water. (Can you imagine how chapped and sore her hands would have been?) She used to use the same tub of sudsy water for quite a few batches … starting with the whites and working her way through to the dirtiest socks (farm socks get awful nasty). She had to empty the tubs by hand and refill them when the water got too dirty or the rinse water got too sudsy. Oh, and don’t let me forget to tell you … the first wringer washer had a hand crank to it.
Laundry actually did take the entire day. I can remember the piles of sorted laundry on the kitchen table and floor … at least eight to ten batches a week. Sheets, towels, underwear, lights, mediums, darks, and levi’s and socks.
Our dryer was rather unique also. It was a long clothesline outside with about five lines stretching maybe forty feet. The lines were about two feet apart from each other I would imagine … maybe less. Mother would wash up several batches and take them out to hang them before starting on a few more batches so the first ones could be drying as she washed more. The last ones to be hung were always the Levi’s and socks. The first were usually the sheets … can you even imagine washing sheets by hand, wringing them out, and running them through the wringer to rinse them by hand, ring them out and run them through the wringer again?
I clearly remember the exciting day when Mom got her first automatic washing machine … which she still couldn’t use for blankets and heavy levi’s. The first dryer came many years later and was only used on cloudy days or in emergencies.
Times have sure changed. There really should be no reason to get behind on laundry now days, should there? I mean, how simple can it get? Click a button, choose a temperature, drop in some soap and maybe some fabric softener … shut the lid and go do what we want. Then, transfer it to the dryer. And not only that … most things don’t even need to be ironed. There used to be another day of the week that was “Ironing Day”. Poor Mama … and she never complained about it. Usually she hummed as she worked.
You are so right – there shouldn’t be any reason for getting behind in laundry – but I manage to do it every so often. Like today – I managed to have ‘saved’ four batches and I nearly wore myself out trying to remember to keep them moving from the washing machine to the dryer. But then that was due to the fact that the book I was reading was so intense. Come to think about it – I think that is why I collected four batches for today …. I was too into that series of books all weekend.