I just filled my washing machine with dark clothes. The prep time (removing the clothes from the hamper, placing them in the machine, adding liquid detergent and fabric softener, took me, maybe, five minutes at most. It would take me another couple of minutes, after the machine has done its chore, to transfer them to the dryer, if I was going to use it. Today, the sun is shining and there's a lovely breeze, so I shall hang them on my clothes line. That does take some time. Not only do I hang the clothes with wooden pegs upon the line, I also have to take time to throw the yellow ball. After the sun and wind complete their part of the drying process, I need to bring them inside, fold them, and put them in their respective places. All together, it might take me 27 minutes to take care of one load of laundry.
But that's today. Hearken back into a child, in the basement of 9 Wellington, and a big round machine. One machine: a washing machine. There is no drying machine. It looks like a big round white tub, with two rollers on top. That's what they are: wringers, to squeeze out the water. My mother and I stand over the steaming water, watching the clothes rotate in the soapsuds. After some time, and the amount of time is fuzzy now, but time enough to remove the dirt and grime of one businessman, one housewife, and three children who played outside in the dirt and grass of the playground and the path behind the house and the train tracks, when they weren't in school, My mother stops the machine's gyrating, empties the water and repeats the process to rinse out the soap.
Now I am only permitted to watch. She places each individual piece of clothing or towels or bedding between the wringers - one at a time. I am allowed to remove them as they come out the other side. They look like . . . I'm sorry, I have to say it . . . the snake I saw on the road the other day. Flat. Absolutely flat, Now I am permitted to carry on the process. No, I'm not permitted. I'm encouraged. What am I saying? I have no choice. It is my girlhood duty to carry the clothes outside in a basket and hang them neatly on the line. Socks together, next to Mom's bra. Panties together next to the white underwear. Dress shirts together. Dresses together. T-shirts together. Dishcloths and towels together. Hang them on the line where they dance in the breeze while they dry. I also remove the clothes, bring them inside, and together, my mother and I fold them neatly in piles. Dads. Moms. Pegs. Pauls. Pats. Kitchen drawers. Ironing.
That was in the summer. In winter, I froze my fingers as I struggled to remove the pegs from the clothing. Then came the fun part. Bring them in the house and stand the pants up on the kitchen floor, all by themselves, frozen in place like tin soldiers. It only lasts a minute as the warmth of the house enters those pants and they fall on the floor like limp rag dolls. There is a three part clothes rack in the dining room where we hang the still-damp laundry to finish the drying process by the register.
Up country, at the farm, is an even older electric wringer washer that works on the same principle, but on Mondays only. Monday wash. Tuesday iron. What did they do when it rained? It must have thrown off the entire weekly schedule. There were three clothes lines that looked like the the line in the photograph above. No fancy wheels and pulleys. If those lines were full of clothes or better yet, bedsheets, they were fun to play in. Fun for grandchildren. Probably not so fun for overworked grandmother.
Wander back another generation. I've only seen the equipment. Several irons: irons made of iron. Heavy, though smaller than our modern irons that we pull out occasionally. Set on the wood stove to heat. Three or four of them, of course; once they lose their warmth, replace them and pick up the next one. Out in the shed next to the kitchen, a big shiny tin tub. Doubled as a Saturday evening bathtub. And there, hanging on the wall, a nubby piece of glass in a wooden frame: a washboard.
My grandmother had to make the soap that made the suds. From lye.
Blessed be her wrinkled, weathered hands.
I took the photo at Kings Landing.
We had a wringer washer too and hung the clothes on the line out the porch window from our second floor flat. I remember when Dad bought Mum an electric washer (still no dryer!) and how it jumped and danced on the floor and we'd have to sit on it or lean on it to keep it still. It was in the kitchen next to the sink and the water from it would go into the sink, down the plumbing and, sometimes, up the sink of the people downstairs! I remember the frozen clothes and the 3 way folding wood rack too, which stood behind the kitchen table in front of the small wall furnace vent. We had lines in the basement (2 flights down) to dry things near the furnace. Mum never got a dryer until she moved to another flat. The 'good old days'. :)
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