ED Note:  This was a speech Barbara gave.  I don’t know how she runs a hotel and does the chores, but it exhausts me thinking about it! =)

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Good afternoon, fellow toastmasters and honored guests my intention today is to entertain and inspire, by presenting my observation of  —

The Laundry

My experience with the laundry started in my childhood home in Vancouver.  Often the laundry just miraculously got done.  Perfectly folded and ironed cloths appeared in my cupboard.  They were done in the basement with a ringer washer, and then hung on the clothesline, which spanned the length of my backyard.  It started from the back porch and ended at the top of a 20-foot silver colored pole at the edge of our yard and the back lane.  My father had erected that pole when we moved into our home and it had been an exciting day.  How to get it up, be straight stay strong, forever.  Now close to 50 years later it stands, he succeeded.

Then there was the stringing of the special line - it must be taut but not too tight so that it might snap or pull the pole down - just tight enough to hold a full load of wet clothing with enough “give”.  This needed a special connector and a winch, and then after lots of discussion (and perhaps some heated debate) it was done.  My mother loved and still does love the fresh smell of cloths dried on a line outside. As I got older I wished and begged for a dryer, so my jeans and other things would be soft.  There were those sunny winter days that the laundry would be hung on the line and turn stiff as the day turned cold.

The washing of clothes in the ringer washer was a production. Having grown up during the Second World War my mother had learned how to conserve and perhaps this was why there was such a routine for the washing of clothes.  A ringer washer is barrel shaped with an arm that came up one side and bent spanning the width over the top of the tub. The section that spans the top had two rollers that can be tensioned together like closing a hair clip, and if something too large was put through, it would pop open, the cool safety feature.

Filling and draining the machine was an ordeal, so first the clothes that were closest to your body were washed and rung, and then the next load was washed and rung.  The rinsing came after, or done by hand in the laundry tub that of course depended on how dirty the wash water was, but the process spanned the day ending with the retrieval of the dry clothes from the line.  I can say that my mother loving did the laundry, which included the ironing of everything down to the undergarments that we wore.  This was truly a labour of love because a person would only go through this ordeal out of love, and there is no doubt that it was labour.  As a kid I was fascinated by this washing machine, the ringers, and of course the hanging of the clothes, which I could barely reach without perching myself precariously on the railing of the porch which put me 10 feet above the ground. Of course, I am not sure that I would have been so fascinated by the process if my mother had not restricted me from doing the things that seemed the most fun - hanging from the porch rail and feeding the clothes through the ringer.
Once I moved away from home, I did the laundry in the basement of the building I lived in. These were coin operated machines that were shared by everyone, and the idea that I would have to do my laundry in machines that had been used by others was not something that met great approval by my mother.  I found it novel at first but also a trek. As I moved around I discovered laundry mats, which held a particular fascination for me.  Lots of action, queuing clothes for the wash and the dry, staying in the mat to make sure your clothes survived the experience and that a stranger did not have to unload your undergarments, and then having to face that same person, knowing that they handled the very most private of your things, and if you could afford those very cute panties you wouldn’t mind who saw them, you probably wouldn’t have to do your laundry in this very public way.

This doing of the laundry became very mundane for me until I discovered the lady who took in other peoples laundry, that usually worked the back corner of the room, commanding several washers and dryers, which no one dared challenge. She would work the laundry like no one’s business, and the most amazing thing she could do was fold. She would fold those clothes and they would look like they had been lovingly ironed, the clothes would come to her funky and stuffed into some nondescript bag, and be returned in perfectly

Balanced, perfectly folded piles of clean clothes. I tried to emulate her fold, on each piece of clothing. Over the years I have developed my fold, and if there are still those that wash and fold in the laundry mats, I could give them a run for their money.
It really wasn’t until I was in my 40’s that I discovered there are woman who love the laundry. You may think that I am overstating this but I do not think so. It started with my cousin’s wife. The picture in your mind of someone who loves laundry may look like a dowdy, apron wearing, over involved in his or her children’s life, type. But Johanne is none of those things. She is beautiful, has a sexy French accent, and is loved by everyone who meets her, and has a need to do the laundry, and does it her way. Get those clothes clean, the whites the whitest, and the darks the brightest, she is the Tide commercial.

Do not go near her laundry, you cannot help her there.

For a while I thought she was an island, I had learned to despise my own laundry, loads and loads of kids clothes and of course my husbands. At the end of my laundry there where piles high of everyone’s clothes and two pieces of my own, how does everyone dirty so many things compared to my own paltry few items, perhaps it was because they were not doing the laundry.
However, as time passed more and more friends and acquaintances revealed themselves. They loved doing the laundry. I did not have the same feelings about this chore and saw no glamour in the process. In fact if I hadn’t lost some of my favorite clothes to the failure of others to read labels, I might not be doing laundry today.  I did not understand for a long time why they liked to do the laundry, and only wished that I had someone to do my laundry with such passion, love and caring.
Then I realized that this was truly a show of love - and now I have found my peace by showing my love for my family with the care I place in the doing of the laundry for them.