Washing clothes doesn’t have the same meaning it used to. Nowadays, we just whip clothes into the washer, place laundry agents into designated slots, press buttons, and poof! The load is off and running. When through, just a flip puts the laundry into the dryer.Not so magical when I was a girl. We had a Maytag wringer washing machine that danced all over the back porch (thanks to its powerful agitator - a major selling point). After the clothes were beaten to death, the next step was the wringer, which required taking the clothes out of the (usually) very hot water, and then doing the wringer thing so to place the clothes in a tub of bluing (blue liquid mixed with water to brighten clothes). Next you’d stir the clothes around in the bluing, and then take them back through the wringer until dry enough to put in a clothes basket (wood-weave, not plastic). Sometimes more than the clothes got wrung - on occasion, it was a sleeve of what you were wearing or a hand. Yes, a Hand. In panic mode, you hit the wringer release and pull whatever was caught out. What an ordeal!
Clothes were dried naturally (i.e., held by wooden clothes pins on wire lines stretched between two posts). The Results: Sheets were stiff (but smelled fresh). Towels were rough (imagine drying your wet body with one). Colored clothes faded in no time (unless turned inside out when put on line). And unmentionables waved in the breeze, exposed for the world to see. Wash Day took the greatest part of a day because laundry was done once a week - usually Monday.
Washing clothes parallels our lives as Christians - to be spiritually clean may mean pressing our buttons, or putting us through the wringer. After all, we never know when we will be hung out for the whole world to see.
Wash Day 1945 - by Grandma Moses
4 comments:
Thank goodness we have made progress in this area of our life. I do remember seeing some of the old washing machines and wringers in operation. I also remember seeing someone catch their hand in a wringer before and trying to scramble and get it out. It definetly gave them a jolt. LOL!
Oh! yeah! That was hectic. I got my arm thru, couln't get to the button fast enough, it ate me up to the elbow and then I fainted! My Timex watch was lost in it that day. But 3 months later.... it took a licking and kept on ticking! All it needed was a new band.
We've come a long way alright!
Thank God for my washing machine and dryer today.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
I'll try to remember this post the next time someone "pushes my buttons" or "puts me through the wringer"! LOL
This gives new insight as to WHY it feels the Lord has left us out there "hangin' high and dry" some days!
Great post.
Kevin, I imagine Grandma Hopper and Grandma Brooks experienced the sensations of helplessness by getting wrung up many times.
Catherine, Thank the Lord for modern appliances. We both know that some landmarks are better left as just that.
Shannon, It is true that in our walk with God, there are many times when we are left "out to dry". In times like these the world watches to see how we accept the elements that come our way. May we wave with dignity and grace.
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