For a while, upon our arrival at Wazoo Farm, I had no dryer. I hung as much as I could fit on the laundry line and then draped socks and T shirts on every available surface. As the days grew rainier and colder, I strung up a line in our sunroom and congratulated myself on introducing humidity to my sad, dry, indoor plants.
We have a dryer now, a huge double-capacity beauty of a machine. I barely think about the luxury as I toss in loads and loads of wet clothes, set the dial and kick up my feet. Often I leave the clothes sitting in the dryer with an easy conscience, rather than mourning a sudden cloudburst.
But now that I have the option of a dryer, I immensely enjoy hanging my clothes and sheets and towels out of doors, though my laundry line is strung inconveniently for anyone who wants to tromp down our hill stairs (my dream: Amish/French laundry line on a pulley system!). Merry has her own stretch of line on which to clip up clothes, and this fits right into her Laura world.
Yes, we are still Ma and Pa. Elsepth is Elspeth-Carrie or Elspeth-Laura though Elephant was Laura this morning. The funniest part yet about our Laura Pioneer experience occurred yesterday, when Pet and Patty (who looked a bit like a blue Subaru) took us into Mancato (Morgantown, WV) so we could visit the doctor and Sam's Club. Since my right breast is like a sack full of marbles, we take trips to Motown every so often so it can get far more attention than it deserves. After much whinnying from Pet and Patty along the way, Merry insisted on accompanying me to the surgeon's office where we waited, and waited, and waited some more so the surgeon could, in approximately 3-5 minutes, plump me like a pillow, shrug unconcernedly, and send me on my way.
After this Pet and Patty dashed like crazy horses down to the parking lot of Sam's Club so Merry and I could wander around the aisles filling our cart with impossibly huge items. Martin was running late for his class so the entire Laura Pioneer crew sat down at a plastic table and ate a huge, greasy pizza and shared an immorally large cup of Coke. ("It was like Sam Walton himself handed me that pizza," Martin confided, eyes glistening.)
Then Pet and Patty blundered through the rain and fog to take us back to Waynesburg.
After this trip, I was ready to trade the blue Subaru for a team of horses and big box stores and busy surgeons for a country store and a visiting doctor.
Will I trade in my dryer and go with the line entirely? Probably not. But sometimes I wish I could.
4 comments:
Believe me dear niece, having lived in a household of five sans dryer all of my growing up years, you don't want to go back there.
Mom spent most of her waking hours doing laundry, and with the humid S FLA climate (very similar to Houston) things always seemed to be wet, including we kids.
My Granny used a wash board and old fashioned hand crank machine until she made my Granddad buy her a dryer and modern washer when they moved to Blacksburg.
They also had the first color TV I ever saw.
Enough suffering, six kids and countless grandkids I've earned this!
Most Gestapo like Home Owners associations won't even allow you the choice of hanging out clothes.
You may want to give your Auntie Phyllis a call, she shared your afflication until she started on preventative medication when we had our cancer scare five years ago.
Luke can no doubt enlighten you on safe alternatives, but the particular drug she took eliminated the problem. It caused us much angst for twenty years though.
We now use B.J.s instead of Sams, but she buys most of our groceries at the Mega-Lo (Wal) Mart.
Money is too hard to make to spend it foolishly, low price is good price!
Kim,
We have a retractable clothes line (I think we got it at Lowe's many years ago), that we attach to a distant post when needed, and retract when not...makes it easier for mowing without getting decapitated! I appreciate my dryer in the winter (don't know how Ma did it freeze drying things), but LOVE the smell of fresh air dried laundry all Spring and Summer!
Tonya
Hey, I LOVE my dryer. Life is much easier with it. The longing was not ungratefulness for the dryer, but a wish for a "simpler" time which after all was not so simple, either.
Kim,
Merry (and the rest of you) might enjoy a CD called "Happy Land, Musical Tributes to Laura Ingalls Wilder", produced by Pa's Fiddle Recordings (www.pasfiddle.com). It has renditions of many of the songs mentioned in the Laura books, along with a booklet of the words and history of each song. We got it last year when we were reading the books to Jenna, and all of us have made it a favorite!
Tonya
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