I approached the subject of this week's topic with my mother over Mother's Day lunch at Applebees (Yes, Applebees 'cause we're high class like that). I thought she might have a unique perspective. My dad was born Amish, and so I expected that there were a ton of things from his childhood that might fit here, but my mom spent most of the first 18 years she was married overseas. Surely her experience would provide us all with survivor-type information that would improve our efforts to live a more "green" lifestyle in the modern area. Interestingly, that's not how it really worked. Instead, I was regaled with a story about how to do your laundry on a rock on the riverbank in the Filipino highlands. In case you wondered, you have a bar of soap and a paddle. You wet the clothing, soap it up with your bar and then find your large rock. You place the item of clothing on the rock and then use the afore-mentioned paddle to beat it mercilessly in an effort to literally knock the dirt out of the clothing. Let me say that again: knock the dirt out of the clothing. I'm willing to do a lot of things in order to be a good steward of the earth's resources. I will renew my recycling efforts. I will look for ways to reuse items. I'm thinking about getting a bicycle for recreation, exercise and perhaps to run errands in my neighborhood. But I draw the line at taking baskets of clothing down to the Olentangy River to beat the dirt out of them. I don't do a great job of keeping up with my laundry as it is...I can't imagine the time required to beat it all into dirt-free submission! Instead, I'll do something that my mom did all the time when we were kids: try to make sure that you've got a full load before running the washing machine.
14 May 2009
green week by marilyn
I approached the subject of this week's topic with my mother over Mother's Day lunch at Applebees (Yes, Applebees 'cause we're high class like that). I thought she might have a unique perspective. My dad was born Amish, and so I expected that there were a ton of things from his childhood that might fit here, but my mom spent most of the first 18 years she was married overseas. Surely her experience would provide us all with survivor-type information that would improve our efforts to live a more "green" lifestyle in the modern area. Interestingly, that's not how it really worked. Instead, I was regaled with a story about how to do your laundry on a rock on the riverbank in the Filipino highlands. In case you wondered, you have a bar of soap and a paddle. You wet the clothing, soap it up with your bar and then find your large rock. You place the item of clothing on the rock and then use the afore-mentioned paddle to beat it mercilessly in an effort to literally knock the dirt out of the clothing. Let me say that again: knock the dirt out of the clothing. I'm willing to do a lot of things in order to be a good steward of the earth's resources. I will renew my recycling efforts. I will look for ways to reuse items. I'm thinking about getting a bicycle for recreation, exercise and perhaps to run errands in my neighborhood. But I draw the line at taking baskets of clothing down to the Olentangy River to beat the dirt out of them. I don't do a great job of keeping up with my laundry as it is...I can't imagine the time required to beat it all into dirt-free submission! Instead, I'll do something that my mom did all the time when we were kids: try to make sure that you've got a full load before running the washing machine.
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I'm with you there Mo. I would think washing clothes in the Olentangy, or as my husband calls it "Old & Dingy", would actually put dirt into the clothes rather than taking it out. Ick,
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