Monday, Monday

"Monday Monday, so good to me, Oh Monday morning...." Monday was always wash day when I was growing up. We had to start early in order to have clothes hung out on the line before 8 a.m. Later than that denoted a lazy housewife. I vaguely remember having to heat water in big kettles on the stove in order to do laundry before we had a hot water heater. Also when the wringer washing machine was actually in the little building appropriately called "the wash house."
It was the early 50's before we dug enough dirt out from under the house to enable us to have a cement basement. From then on dirty clothes went down the stairs and baskets of clean wet clothes were hauled up the steps to be hung out on the line.
There was a certain order in which to wash - whites first while the water was the hottest and cleanest, followed by sheets and/or towels, then colored clothes and finally jeans and work clothes. The clothes were run from the washing machine through the wringer and over into a rinse tub. The first rinse tub I remember had a handle which was pushed back and forth operating a paddle on the bottom which agitated the clothes. When that tub rusted out we sloshed the clothes up and down several times by hand and then back through the wringer into a clothes basket.
Laundromats were my laundry rooms when my kids were little. Wash day happened Saturday or Sunday or sometimes at night because I worked full time. I sorted the clothes at home before hauling them to the laundromat. If I was lucky there would be eight or ten unused washing machines so I could get all the clothes washed at the same time. Often, though, there would be a wait for the washers and then the dryers.

To me, a laundromat was the most demeaning place of all. When my sons were dating, I told them they should not get married until they could afford to buy a washer and dryer.
When we moved to the acreage NW of Urbandale there was an old wringer washing machine in the basement and clotheslines outside. Eventually we bought a used dryer. The wringer didn't work well enough, though, so I would take the clothes in to the laundromat where they had a machine called an extruder which spun the water out. Then back home to the dryer. No wonder I hated doing laundry.
I never had an automatic washer and dryer until Kari & Preston were in high school and we lived in the apartments at Normandy Terrace. There was one washer and one dryer for six apartments. Luckily they were right outside our door. I've had a washer and dryer since then, but never a matched set until we bought these when we moved here. Now laundry is so easy. And instead of eight or ten loads a week, I only have two loads every other week or so. Like I said once before, life is backwards.