When I tell you I was one sick little girl looking at her ruined laundry, believe me! George worked a “swing” shift at the plant so was home when all this transpired. The look on his face told the whole story. Trouble in Paradise. Yes there was trouble……I asked if he and his dad had set the posts in concrete and his answer was negative. My retort….“and why not?” to a “didn’t think it was necessary.”

I flew into an insane fit. All of the tension I had been feeling the past month gushed out in staccato time. My words hit as machine gun bullets at this person I had just married. “Do I have to draw a picture for you and your dad to get anything done right around HERE?” George made no reply but just had a sick look on his face. (Totally understandable, right?) I paced around the living room ranting over my disaster until there were no words, no energy and no idea of what to do next.

When I got quiet enough to think I picked up a couple of laundry baskets and went to the clothesline….speaking in general terms. George followed behind at a safe distance and we began picking up the items together. Our beautiful linens, ruined. The litany was the same for each piece I picked up. I mourned their untimely demise and doubted they would ever be the same. I was right about that.

We stopped at the grocery store and bought a large jug of bleach and some laundry powder. When we entered the launderette the owner looked at our mess and started filling the tubs. Our “launderette” was comprised of Maytag wringer washers and three rinse tubs that were on tables around the washer. She suggested before I began washing in earnest I should run them through the washer of clear water and the three rinses…..then wash in hot bleach water and follow through. She put “bluing” in the last rinse tubs for me as a sympathetic gesture.

George, realizing I had some support equal to the task, decided to go back home and dig holes to fill with concrete to reset the poles. Our poor clothes went from red mud to dirty, dingy and finally better but not great. (It took years to wash and bleach the stain out of them and it took years for me to shut up about the mess whenever it crossed my mind.) I folded them carefully from the dryer and took them home, placing them in our new linen closet.

I may be stupid once but usually not the second time. To make sure it never happened again after the poles were set I brought the clothes in religiously, dry or not. I apologized for my tirade and peace reigned supreme over the house.

In a small town women are judged as to what kind of housekeepers they are by the washing they hang on the lines. You drive by, notice the laundry flapping in the breeze and say, “Boy !! Mrs. So and So sure puts out a nice wash. I bet you could eat off her floors”…..or… “Wow !! Look at those dingy clothes. I’d be ashamed to hang them out where everyone could see them !! I can just imagine what kind of a housekeeper she is.”

Then there is the ironing thing. “I knew a woman who was such a good housekeeper she even ironed her rags…. and look at his jeans. His wife irons them. Can you believe that?” Knowing all this made my heart heavy as I hung my dingy clothes each week on my now sturdy lines. “She’s a new bride you know….she can’t be expected to know how to wash clothes properly……..she’s so young.” But you can never rebuttal an issue with old lady busy bodies……..you just hear it from the town gossip line and therefore…….you own their remarks.

A few days later I decided to cook some beans. I ate with my landlady before marriage and she was a wonderful cook. I loved her beans….cooked on a wood stove in an aluminum kettle that simmered for hours until the “juice” was thick and yummy. She always cooked pinto beans with either ham or bacon. They were the best beans I’d ever eaten (sorry Mom) even yet. She’d cooked beans all of her many years and had a handle on how to make them good.

We had been given a couple of pans with lids for wedding gifts so I bought the beans and rinsed them as I’d seen mom do. I poured what I wanted to cook in a pan and covered them with water like mom did. I was beginning to feel like a true married woman…….wash on the line, beans on the stove, working and coming home to our own house. Well…..back to the “bean thing.” I checked them as I knew I should and to my amazement they were already at the top of the pan. I grabbed our bigger sauce pan, poured them into it….added more water. I avoided disaster and was feeling good.

On my next look the beans had come to the top again. We had a new apartment size electric range and I didn’t want the beans to spill over the top. George was home that morning so I told him to go down to the Five and Dime to get a bigger pan. He came back just in time to pour again. He had to make a second trip down for a larger container…this time a 4-qt. Kettle. I didn’t know how long beans were supposed to cook so because it was time for a meal I put them on the table. After chasing them around on the plate we ended up eating peanut butter sandwiches for supper.

I thought I knew all about cooking but there were a lot of things experienced cooks know that a cook book never addresses. I set out to make myself as good a cook as my mother was…………..it took a long time.

Until tomorrow,

Essentially Esther