To turn a blind eye to injustice is an even greater injustice inflicted upon the wronged.
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Today is another beautiful day with the promise of spring as its soul. About one-half hour after I wrote how lovely yesterday seemed, it began to pour the rain. Today will be different!
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This tough winter just became gloomier; the girls across the street have all moved out of the house. Two of them were college graduate students and the other two worked in local offices. The home owner has put the place up for sale but I don't look for it to come off the market very quickly; the housing situation is still getting worse.
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Flickr has become even slower; it seems it is taking a very long time for a comment to appear after it is clicked to be posted. I would not say much if it was a free service, but I and and hundreds of thousands of others are paying to use it. My Gmail is also slow, but I do not pay for it.
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When I was a kid, Monday was wash day; the old ringer-washer and galvanized wash tubs would be pulled out, water was drawn from the outside cistern and heated in big pots on the wood-burning cook stove. Homemade and hand-flaked lye soap was used as a detergent.
Clothes washing was a family affair with my grandmother quietly in charge and my mom and aunt doing most of the transferring of clothing from the "dirty" box to the floor where they were sorted and then to the washer and from there to the rinse and finally to the outdoor clothesline. My uncles helped by carrying water to and from the machine and keeping the fire going; it was all hot, inside work in summer and winter. My job was to keep from under foot, but I was usually nagging to be allowed to put wet clothes through the ringer. I never did get to do so and I still have all my fingers. When I was around eight years old they wanted me to help out, but by that time I really did not want to; the woods were constantly calling me to come to them and daydream and that was and has forever since been my life. If it was raining on Monday, just enough clothes to get us by for a couple of days were washed and hung to dry on the enclosed back porch.
All of our wash tubs were round and of the galvanized type. The large No. 3 tubs were also used for our bathing needs, and for me that meant Saturdays. All sizes of the tubs that we had went to the blackberry patches with us in summer and we did not leave until they were filled. One of the big tubs held more than 15 gallons; we were serious berry pickers.
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I've probably previously written in this blog about washday, and I'm sure what I wrote then was somewhat different than what I penned today, but that is ok. The older memories become, the more they seem to change. I feel blessed that I still have what I do ... that is unless I am making it all up. You decide.
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Have a great wash day!
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6 comments:
I like the stories about wash day. In the early 70s my Uncle and Aunt moved from coal country PA to the Ozarks of Missouri to live off the land as much as possible. They had an outhouse and few luxuries. I recall visiting them as a young girl and watching my Aunt, mother, and Grandmother doing the laundry with one of those wringer/washers which looked to me like a child-eater. My aunt got her finger caught in it once and it messed her hand up pretty good for a while. I only recall my job as standing under the line holding the clothes pins for one of them to hang the washed laundry and then running through the hung sheets and towels playing hide & seek... I had forgotten all about that wash day until you shared your memory. how nice! My aunt now does have an old washer in her bathroom but the only clothes drier they have is the old wood stove in the living room over which Uncle hung a little line.
Happy Monday. All the leaves have decided to fall off the trees out back and my back yard is covered with leaves - perfect for composting.
Glad my memories sparked your recollections, Tammy. Maytag still made the washers up 'til @1984, and other companies (Crosley, for one) were still building them into the mid '90's at least. You were right about the child eater; they didn't easily let go.
Are you going to rake the leaves or does Mike have a leaf blower. ;-)
Thanks for this story, Ken. I remember my Mother in our old laundry (we lived in a tenement, and this laundry was common). She used a special powder when she rinsed the bedclothes. This powder caused that water was a bit blue.
I love your memories. Yes, have a great wash day. :-)
Hi, Jola.
These memories of the good things in our childhoods are so precious. That is a good story about the blue water from the powder.
Maybe tomorrow I will remember to tell about the washboard.
Thanks, Jola. :-)
Yea, I can't say I have those memories of wash day.
Our stories do seem better with time snd we most likely do embelish them.
Wash days are a lot easier to look back at than I remember them actually being.
My worst problem is the details are beginning to disappear from my mind.
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