When I was a little girl...

...I had to wash clothes for the entire family. From as early as I can remember I thought washing clothes was extremely fun. I got to help Grandma and Papa T wash their clothes in the great big antique washing maching apparatus they had set up in their garage. It was a series of tubs, agitators, wringers, and more tubs. You filled some of the tubs up with water from the hose--Papa would usually start working on this first thing in the morning--others you left empty to catch the wrung out clothes. Then Grandma and I would separate all of their clothes, starting with light and then moving to darks. The clothes would hit the agitator, go through a wringer, fall into a rinse tub, where they would sit for a couple of minutes. Then they'd go through another wringer, another rinse, and I believe one more wringer, rinse, wringer cycle until they were ready to go to the line.

My jobs during this time were very important. I was to chase any buttons that popped off from the wringers and I was to scoop the soap bubbles out of the last rinse tub. For some reason, I remember it being extremely important that the last tub be immaculately clean of soap bubbles. I was never ever ever to stick my fingers anywhere near those wringers, as my whole body would go through it just like the shirts did and I would end up in the waiting tub all wrung out like a wet shirt--that thought made me very scared of those wringers.

Then Grandma and I would hang the clothes on the line. I was too short to reach the line, but I could hand her clothes pins and unfurl the shorter items like socks, underwear and wash cloths. There was always an order to hanging up the clothes and clothes always shared a clothes pin with another item of clothing. I can still see in my mind that line with the socks, stocking underwear (hers then his), night shirts, t-shirts, gowns, dresses and overalls--everything flapping in the wind. I always got to fold the wash cloths when we would go get everything off of the line later that day. Clothes washing days were some of my favorite with Grandma and Papa T.

I also was the clothes washer for our family. I learned that you had to keep towels and everything else separate or you got these pills on your clothes that were really unattractive. Most of the time we dried our clothes in the dryer, but I would also hang clothes on the line if the weather was nice. I hated hanging clothes on the line at my mother's house. I don't know why other than there were always spiders nesting in the little springs of the clothes pins, and there was a very agressive blue jay that lived in a nearby tree and believed that we were after her and her babies. She would swoop down and knock me on the head if I wasn't careful. I often had to wear the clothes basket on my head to keep from being pecked. I remember one time when Mom was trying to get me to hang the clothes on the line when I was a teenager and I really didn't want to for all of the above reasons among others (I'm sure I was reading some book or other than had completely captured my attention). At any rate, I cried "have you ever had to dry your face with a towel dried on the line?" I remember the scratchy towels hurting my skin. She lauged at me, as she should have.

But overall, I really really enjoyed washing clothes. I still do, and have about 6 loads of them to get done today!