D. E. Larsen, DVM
When I was growing up, men, and boys, worked at the barn. Mom and the sister worked in the house. Of course, Mom did a lot more than just housework, which often included the morning milking.
Clean clothes were always carefully folded and in my drawer or hanging in the closet. I knew laundry was done. In those years in an old wringer washer and with the aid of scrub board when needed, but other than noticing Mom hanging clothes on the clothesline to dry, I didn’t know much about what went into getting things clean.
Then came my first experience of living away from home. I have no idea if there were laundry facilities in the college dorm. Mom had packed a laundry bag for me, and when it was full, I drove three hours to home so Mom could do my laundry. That happened every week.
The following year, I went to Colorado State University for one quarter. It was expensive, and they sold beer to eighteen year olds. So I only lasted the one quarter.
The important thing, when the laundry bag was full, I couldn’t just drive home. I was lucky to find a laundromat that was operated by an older couple. They were there all the time and the lady sort of took me under her wing and helped me through the process.
It was nice to return home so Mom could handle my laundry.
Then came the Army. In the Army, you just paid money and someone did all the laundry. You could get your uniform starched and ironed, and all the clothes came back neatly folded. All I had to do was put things away.
For the most part, overseas it was no different. Excellent in Korea. The expense was less but the laundry ladies beat the clothes on flat rocks, or concrete floors, depending on where you were located.
I learned quickly that buttons did not fair well when bashed against a flat rock. Sewing new buttons back on fatigue was a real pain. I learned that they could be secured easily with a paper clip, fashioned with a pair of dikes, punched through the fabric and bent over and flattened with pliers. Not up to Army regulations, but in Korea, nobody noticed.
In Germany, things were gentler. I just handed the bag off to a older guy from a small town near Schöningen, and he would take care the laundry and any necessary repairs. You just paid money, a little more than in Korea.
After my discharge, I returned to school at Oregon State. I purchased an older trailer house and lived by myself in a trailer park.
I was lucky, the neighbor’s wife got me straightened out on how to run the machines in the laundry room. But I was stuck with doing laundry myself.
Then came marriage, and I was not allowed to touch the laundry. Sandy was horrified by the way I would do things. I mixed light and dark colors, I didn’t shake out the wrinkles before putting things in the dryer, and I tended to stuff things away with proper folding.
Of note, when we moved to Colorado when I entered veterinary school, we lived in an apartment without a washer and dryer for the first few months before we we could move into married student housing. We returned to same laundromat that I had used six years earlier. The same couple was there. And with a little jog to their memory, they could remember that kid who had no idea how to do laundry.
Now that we are retired, I am allowed to help a little with the laundry. I am allowed to do any heavy lifting and I can remove clothes from the deep recesses of the top loading washing machines. There are a few other tasks that I can do, under close supervision. And corrections are often made.
Photo Credit: Budget bizar on pexels.
Memoirs of a Country Vet 