Welcome to The Club Spring 2024

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A Wild, Wacky Wooden
Washing Machine
by Norma West Linder, from Daytripping March-April 2006
We take hydro so much
for granted today that we
miss it terribly even when
we lose it briefly. When
I was a baby, we moved
to Manitoulin Island - to a
house with no hydro.
In an effort to “brighten” our lives,
my father wrote an essay extolling the
virtues of the Aladdin Lamp, an item
he’d never even seen, let alone used.
His literary efforts were rewarded by
the presentation of a beautiful model
decorated with hand-painted roses.
It was my mother’s special pride -
right up until the day my grandfather
accidentally knocked it over.
“What are you going to tell Les?”
he asked, surveying the broken pieces.
“What do you mean?” she replied.
“You broke it.”
“It would sound better coming
from you.” Leaving her to sweep up the
pieces, he came over to sit beside me
on the couch. “I didn’t like the way it
hissed anyway,” he whispered.
Leaving the lighting situation,
my father turned his attention to
the laundry problem. He rigged up
a washing machine consisting of a
two-handled wooden tub set on a
wheel with a cross belt, hooked up
to a homemade wooden pulley. The
whole affair was propelled by a onehorsepower
gasoline engine. I use the
word propelled advisedly.
On the day of the washer’s
christening, our entire family
assembled in the kitchen. It turned out
to be something of a maiden voyage as
well. The clothes not only got washed,
they got taken for a ride. We watched,
helpless with laughter as the machine
took off across the kitchen floor.
After that, the inventor’s presence
was requested on wash days to help
corral the wooden beast. But it did
save my mother a lot
of scrubbing on the old
washboard, an item seen
only in museums today.
In time, the power lines
from Mindemoya reached
us. Our coal oil lamps were
replaced by electric light bulbs. And
my father’s fantastic flying machine
was replaced by a shining new “Easy”
washer, its lime green enamelled sides
necked with white dots. I loved to press
my face against its warmth and listen to
the rhythmic chugging of its motor. As
each load was finished, I watched as it
was put through the wringer, fascinated
to see wet clothes emerge as flattened,
multi-coloured ribbons.
The magic of hydro! No more sooty
lamp chimneys to clean. No more
laundry bubbling on the stove in a big
copper boiler. And radio! The wonder
of shared laughter as we sat listening
to Bums and Allen. Jack Benny, Edgar
Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. My big
sister’s favourite was Amos and Andy.
Mine was Fibber Magee and Molly. And
Mortimer Snerd. Radio voices peopled
our lives; they were as real to us as our
paper friends in the Saturday comics.
Strangely enough, as though hearing
depended upon seeing, we always
watched the small brown igloo-shaped
radio as we sat listening to it in the
living room.
There was a closeness in family life
then, the kind of closeness seclusion
promotes. Weathering hardships might
have had something to do with it as
well.
They say necessity is the mother of
invention, but it isn’t always so. When I
think of that wacky homemade washing
machine my father designed to make
my mother’s wash days a little easier,
I know that love can be the mother of
invention too.
P A G E
16
(Family Feud Answers) Something specific you should drink a lot of when you’re sick. – Alcohol
SPRING 2024