September 15, 2000

“I don’t know how two people can go through so many clothes,” I lamented to my husband. “You just don’t realize how much time I spend sorting, washing, drying, and folding laundry, and then putting it away...”

“You think you’ve got it rough, it used to take Grandma all day to put out a warsh, an’ she didn’t have a automatic warshin’ machine or a dryer to do the work for ’er,” Mel replied. “She done it the hard way, boilin’ sheets in a pot in the front yard an’ then havin’ to wrang ’em out by hand—tawk about heavy—an’ then hangin’ ’em on a line to dry. Skinnin’ up her knuckles on a rubboard scrubbin’ clothes in a number three warshtub...”

“And just how would you know? You’re not THAT old.”

“Maybe not, but my family wuz so backards, we didn’t know the Great Depression wuz over ’til the early 1950s, an’ we wudn’ta known it then if my older brother hadn’t read about it in a history book at school.”

I dug through a pile of socks, in search of a matching pair, muttering “I swear, the washer must be eating them...”

“You thank I’m kiddin’,” but Mama an’ Grandma still done thur warsh the old-time way when I was little,” Mel continued. “We’d have three big pots goin’ at once’t—one fer renderin’ lard, one fer makin’ lye soap, an another’n, fer doin’ the laundry. I remember seein’ Grandma’d take ’at lard, an a box o’ lye, an pitch in some ashes to make lye soap. Never understood how all those nasty ingredients mixed together made soap.”

“I’ve heard my own grandmother say there wasn’t anything better than lye soap for getting clothes clean,” I commented.

“Didn’t taste too good though,” Mel snorted.

“I figured you’d know about that,” I retorted, putting a crease in a pillow case. “And just what was your job, other than providing lots of dirty clothes for your mother and grandmother to do up?”

“My job wuz to keep draggin’ up cedar logs, keepin’ the fires stoked, an’ stirrin’ the sheets with a cedar post. Tawk about hard work! Compared to back then, you ain’t got it bad a’tall, woman.

“An’ on top of everthang else, Grandpa had an ol’ billy goat that put Grandma in her warsh tub ever’ time she bent over,” Mel hooted.

“He wouldn’t have butted me but once and we’d have had cabrito sandwiches,” I replied.

“Grandma got even with him,” Mel said, with a wide grin. “One day, she went out by a big ol’ stump in the yard, put her dress over the stump, an’ just stood there for a bit. All at once’t, that ol’ billy saw her an’ come a runnin’. I didn’t see it, but Daddy said the goat hit that stump full force. It knocked him down. He thrashed around on the ground a bit while Grandma stood there, triumphantly. After a little bit, he got up an’ staggered off. Needless to say, the goat stayed clear o’ Grandma from then on.”

I folded the last towel and put it on the stack. “Guess there really have been a lot of changes over the years where laundry is concerned.”

“Yeah, but one thang ain’t changed. The womenfolk was airin’ my dirty laundry before Gawd an’ ever’body back then an’ you ain’t let up a lick!”