The Summer of Laundry

1.  Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone by Bill Withers

2.  You've Got A Friend by James Taylor

3.  How Can You Mend A Broken Heart by Bee Gees

4.  Treat Her Like a Lady by Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose

5.  Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey by Paul & Linda McCartney

6.  My Sweet Lord by George Harrison

7.  Put Your Hand In the Hand by Ocean

8.  Chick-A-Boom by Daddy Dewdrop

9.  If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot

10. Rose Garden by Lynn Anderson

11. Don't Pull Your Love by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds

12. I Don't Know How to Love Him by Helen Reddy

13. Draggin' the Line by Tommy James

14. Sweet City Woman by The Stampeders

15. Me and You and a Dog Named Boo by Lobo

16. One Toke Over the Line by Brewer & Shipley

17. Never Ending Song of Love by Delaney & Bonnie

18. I Am ...I Said by Neil Diamond

19. American Pie by Don McLean

For some reason, of which I'm not sure, my mother decided that I needed to learn how to do laundry - in a BIG way.  I can't say exactly which summer it was but by doing some deductive reasoning I'm going to say it was 1971.  You know how you hear a song and it immediately puts you in a particular time and place?  Well, that's what happens with this playlist.  I hear them and I'm suddenly transported to the basement in our house on Keenan Street and I can swear I faintly smell laundry detergent and mustiness.  That's a strong connection!  So by finding the year that these songs would have been playing on the radio I deduced it to be 1971.  Could've been 1972 because my town always was far behind everyone else - and it also has a knack for hanging on to things - but I'm going to go with 1971.  I'd be willing to bet that you could go there today, turn on the radio, and still hear Debby Boone's You Light Up My Life getting air play.  Hmmmm.

Anyway, it's 1971 - I'm 11 years old.  We have moved back to Pennsylvania the previous fall from our one year in Arizona.  We are now up to seven children - Ed, Kevin, Marvin, Janice, Tina, Brenda, and Sam.  Our house is large and we fill all three levels (not including the basement.)  It is a fantastic house, built around  1900.  We are just down the street from my maternal grandparents.  The yard is huge and we also have a gigantic garden.  There are lots of memories that go with this home but today I'm going to concentrate on this particular summer.  The basement was not a finished space like basements are today.  There were dirt floors and low ceilings except in the area where we kept the washer and dryer.  The ceilings were low but cement had been poured making it a much better area in which to be hanging out.  The low ceilings were not an issue with me as I had not yet reached my substantial adult height of 4' 11". Most people could stand up straight down there, but there wasn't much room for jumping or anything.  I got along just fine!  There was always plenty of laundry to be done just by the number of people in the household.  None of us had extensive wardrobes or anything, but even if all of us had just a few, that's a lot of laundry!!

So she took me down and showed me the washer and how it worked.  Then moved on to the dryer, stressing how important it was to keep the lint trap clean.  She explained water temperatures and how they work and which colors and fabrics should go with each temperature.  She told me how important and helpful it was to get things out of the dryer as soon as possible after it stopped because the wrinkles were markedly fewer.  Now, another thing you have to know is that I get my ironing sickness from her.  Sure, permanent press was available, but she didn't believe in it - and nor do I!  Somehow things just need to be ironed - permanent press or not.  They don't look as crisp or as fresh if they aren't.  But pulling things out of the dryer quickly makes for a much shorter ironing time.  To be honest, I didn't heed this at first.  But it only took a couple times of laboriously trying to iron wrinkles that have been set to realize she probably knew what she was talking about.  

I learned to use distilled water in the iron to prevent buildup of deposits.  I learned that bleach is a silent striker and it lurks in the most unseemly places just waiting for something dark to wander by.  I learned that a stray red garment can, indeed, turn a whole load of whites pink.  I learned that, when ironing, doing the collars and sleeves first made it go much quicker.  I learned how important it is to make sure a shirt is hanging on the hanger correctly.  I learned that steam in an iron works awesome on stubborn wrinkles.  I learned to love the smell of spray starch and the feel of warm sheets and towels being pulled from the dryer.  To this day I almost always stick my face into the warm mass and take a big whiff of the wonderfulness!

You might think that I protested and stomped around when I found out that this was to be my big summer work but you'd be wrong.  I was happy.  And let me tell you why.  When I was an even younger girl, about 5 or 6, we lived in Clarendon on Main Street.  Clarendon was a wee bit of a town with only the one stoplight that I think might have only operated during the season when people were going up to Chapman Dam.  Anyway, we kids roamed freely around Clarendon and everyone pretty much knew everyone else.  Our next door neighbors were older folks on both sides.  On one side the Gerbers and the other the Riggles.  Mrs. Gerber was always having me over to chat with her.  She was a grandma sort with no children at home so she loved to treat me like a granddaughter, I suppose.  But I loved going over to keep her company as she did her daily chores.  I especially loved watching her do her laundry.  It was such a production with her sprinkle bottle of scented water with which she dutifully doused her linens.  I was big for asking "why" and she informed me that she did this so that it would dampen the linens and make it easier when she ironed them.  And when she ironed them the steam would rise as the hot iron would hit the damp linens.  I'm, again, deducing here , but I am pretty sure this meant she didn't have a steam iron or maybe they hadn't been invented yet.  I don't know, but the idea is the same - steam is great on wrinkles!  To this day I love spraying my sheets and pillows with linen mist so that I have that lovely scent.  And I always think of Mrs. Gerber as I do it!  I don't iron my sheets, but they smell like I do!

                                   Julie Albaugh and I in the yard of my house on Main Street in 

                                         Clarendon.  ca.1965  We are standing between our house and the Riggles'.

To make the time more enjoyable I did as my mother did and always had music playing during the day.  I found a great old radio at a garage sale and set it up in the basement and tuned in LeRoy Schneck at WNAE at 1310 AM.  Sometimes I'd bring that box record player down and listen to records but, for the most part, it was the radio.  At the time, my favorite song on that playlist was Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey followed closely by Sweet City Woman.  I would sing and sing and get so excited when they were played.  Making this playlist also brought me to a couple of other songs that could be added to the playlist of songs I sang in our band - Put Your Hand In the Hand and Rose Garden.  The great classic American Pie gives me lots of memories as I would find out the next year that my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Beck, considered it an anti-Christ song and would not allow us to play it on the afternoons that we had free time and would bring in our albums to share.  I hadn't really listened to the lyrics before and was shocked that she felt so strongly about it.  I guess on the surface you can see how she'd get that, but I never followed her all the way to the anti-Christ diagnosis.  It was merely a comment on the times.  It is a vital part of the fabric of the era.  I Don't Know How to Love Him was also a song that rankled some.  It's from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar which was huge at the time.  It was a time of many ranklings, that 60's going into 70's period.  People were as upset about that musical as they are of The DaVinci Code today.  Come to think of it, in retrospect, Mr. Schneck must have been quite the liberal, willing to push the envelope, for putting those songs on the air.  I'm curious as to whether or not he received any criticism for doing so.  

You'll notice a Bee Gees song, one that just melted my heart every time I heard it - a pre-disco offering.  Bill Withers ruled with his sultry, bluesy voice.  I just really wanted a guy to think that way about me some day.  There are a lot of great, iconic songs here - I Am...I Said, My Sweet Lord, You've Got a Friend, in addition to the ones already mentioned.  And there are some fun, quirky songs like Chick-A-Boom, and Me and You and A Dog Named Boo, which I heard later is supposedly a drug reference.  All I know is that in my head, I pictured somebody in a car with their friend and their dog traveling around the country having a good time - no drugs around.  

I enjoyed my summer in the basement - not that I never did laundry again after that.  I certainly did, but not as focused as that particular summer.  As I got more skilled, I got faster, and I didn't need to be down there as much.  But I have a vivid imagination and I would go on all sorts of adventures in my head and pretend all sorts of things.  Seeing as one of my favorite shows during my childhood was Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, somedays I would pretend that I was Cinderella and that the Prince would come by the house wanting a dipper of fresh water or to try to find the owner of a particular glass slipper.  But I couldn't help him because I was in the basement!  Alas, he would leave and I would be in such despair!  Yeah, I was a silly girl but I had fun there in My Own Little Corner.  Hahaha!  Who knew laundry could be so entertaining!  Fond memories, indeed.