When
I was 11 or 12 years old my mom taught me how to iron properly. She started me out on my dad’s white
handkerchiefs. My Dad is 84, he was then
and still is a pastor. It was the norm
for his generation to use handkerchiefs (made of a variety of fabrics) as an
accessory in the lapel pocket of their suit/sports jacket and have an extra
generic “hanky” made of cotton, cotton blend less expensive fabric for a
variety of purposes. The ironing process for me was relatively simple. My mom did the laundry and set the
handkerchiefs aside for me, however, she always folded them to eliminate
additional wrinkles. There was a
timeline for the handkerchiefs to be completed, generally one-two days after they
were laundered. I gathered the
handkerchiefs, set the ironing board up in the “den” aka family room; turned
the iron on to the cotton setting; turned the television to my favorite show; removed
the cork and metal sprinkler head, filled the 16 oz. glass coke bottle with
water, replaced the sprinkler head, shook it over the handkerchiefs to dampen them,
balled them up to help keep the pile damp; shook the can of spray starch; opened
a handkerchief; sprayed it with just enough starch; listened to it crackle
softly as it infiltrated the fabric and I began the ironing process which at
times seemed to go on and on and on.
Each handkerchief was folded in half; then thirds; stacked in neat piles
and placed in my Dad’s handkerchief drawer.
It was against the law in our household to have “cat faces” on any of
the handkerchiefs. Violating the Law of
Hazel Marie Walker could result in something as little as a light fussing to as
much as a drastic tongue lashing (free of cuss words obviously because we were
“sanctified” at least my parents were) but regardless of the amount of tongue
that was used to get me together, I most definitely had to re-do what was
“half-done”.
Tania
Not Tanya moment: I hear you, what is a
cat face? An area of the garment with
remaining small wrinkles, generally the center.
I don’t know if my Mom created
that phrase or if it was something she learned from her mom during her youth,
but I can still hear her voice today, “make sure you don’t leave any ‘cat
faces’ on those handkerchiefs.”
At
any rate, my mom maintained a watchful eye over me, not to the point where it
was overbearing, but she did inspect my work (which is how she discovered the
‘cat faces’). She praised me when I did
a good job and corrected me during my training process and when I was trying to
take short cuts or be lazy about the task I was assigned. Once I learned the basics I developed a
system and could go through a batch of handkerchiefs with relative ease. By this time I was getting paid for doing the
work but my employer, I mean my Mom was quick to tell me she would “make me
iron” with no pay if I was going to give her attitude about work she assigned to
me. That was enough to motivate me to
follow through with the task I was assigned to ensure I continued to get
paid.
Likewise, tell the
older women to be reverent in their behavior, teaching what is good, rather
than being gossips or addicted to heavy drinking. 4 That way they can mentor
young women to love their husbands and children, 5 and to be sensible, morally
pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, so that God’s
word won’t be ridiculed. Titus 2:3-5
(CEB)
Once
mom was comfortable with my performance she added more responsibility, ironing
my own clothes and ultimately ironing my dad’s dress shirts. It goes without saying that she wanted to
make sure that I had a good concept of ironing before including the additional
responsibility of Dad’s dress shirts which could be very costly to
replace.
Tania
Not Tanya Nugget: I have seen countless
commercials and/or television shows which depicted a person ironing with a huge
brown (burnt) image of an iron (including the vent holes) on the shirt, but it
never made sense to me. Why? Because a person would have to set the iron to
‘high’, place the iron face down on the clothing and leave it there unattended
for several minutes or the setting on the iron was not appropriate for the
fabric.
During
a teachable moment, my mom told me that when she was a young girl her mom used a product called Argo Laundry starch to make clothing crisp. The process was as follows: after washing the clothes she dissolved an
Argo Starch ball (the approximate size of a medium sized candy jawbreaker) in a
container of water; dipped the clothing article in the container to allow the
item to fully absorb the starch; wrung the item out; hung it to dry; balled it
up; placed in the fridge overnight or for at least a few hours before
ironing. She used an old school iron,
cleaned it off, heated it on her family’s gas stove and then began the process
of ironing. Whew, I’m tired already and
I haven’t lifted a finger. But it made
me appreciate the labor of love my mom invested into her family’s laundry as
well as for her own family when she married my Dad in 1950. She proudly boasts of ironing everything:
(e.g. bed linen, handkerchiefs, doilies, table cloths, etc. even my Dad’s
boxers). Is that TMI? Oh well, it’s too late now, I done said it.
I
don’t recall wishing I could iron like my Mom as I watched her iron, in fact, I
don’t have any recollection of her ironing at all, though I know she did; nor do
I remember waking up one day with the determination to iron. My mother knew there were certain things that
I needed to learn to equip me for life which included domestic tasks (e.g.
laundry, avoiding lint, cooking, baking, setting the table, serving, sewing,
cleaning, etc.) in addition to: hygiene, caring for my younger siblings,
obedience, consequences for my choices, respecting my elders, etc. As a young child I didn’t understand that she
was teaching me a variety of skills that would be helpful throughout life. I naively thought she was showing me how to
do something new, which was exciting and fun initially in those first few
lessons, but then I realized she had taught me how to perform a new task and it
was now my new chore. Needless to say,
the excitement dissipated and I was no longer a happy camper. Attitudes were acceptable in our home as long
as she didn’t know you had one because again, Hazel Marie would get you
together “real quick” as we often say in Victorville (Who-Dee-Whooooo).
Because of his permanent promises to us
Tania not Tanya
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