MOVING SOUTH AND HOOKING UP WITH THE PARKERS

 Moving South about a hundred miles to hook up with Bob and Donna Parker, Jim's (Jaillet) cousins where we'll stay for the next week. The weather changed to rain but didn't cool much. It was 75* when we got up at 5:30. Even the gulls were absent from the parking lot. One lone fellow kept trying to dig something out of a pickup truck, maybe an ice chest tempted him. Previous mornings flocks of them were raucously sounding in what could be considered the equivalent of a rooster crowing the coming morn. 

We stopped in Berkeley, MA to have the Motor Home refrigerator serviced at USRV, where Jim's (Bacon) cousin, Mike De Paola, works. We stocked up on some bacteria additive for the black water holding tank and a new set of blades for the wipers, etc. The company also has a dump station and a place to take on water, all needed chores required for smooth wheeling on the road. We'll meet with Mike and his wife Saturday afternoon for cocktails.
We arrived at Donna and Bob's where personality and hospitality reign supreme. Donna baked a French Meat Pie for Jim, her first time effort.  I told Donna she was a spoiler and its absolutely true. She would make everyone's dream come true if it were in her power. The meat pie was excellent, so much better than anything you can purchase. KUDOS!
The plan is to attend the festivities at the Portuguese Festival in New Bedford,  something we've been looking forward to for a month. I especially enjoyed the Fado, when I was in Portugal, a sort of seaman's lament about being away from home, the loneliness, contemplating missing comrades, missing his sweetheart, wife,  children and all things dear. Its an emotional, pleading kind of performance and they perform the Fado here at the Festa. New Bedford became an adopted home for Portuguese sailors who emigrated here in the late 1700's and brought their traditions with them to stay.

HIDING UNMENTIONABLES

I remember telling a Michigan cousin of mine that in California, when you hang your clothing on the line, by the time you get to the end of the line, the first items you hung are dry. She didn't believe me. It was eighty-eight degrees at 7:30 in the morning, yesterday. It was that kind of day.
Unloading the motorhome meant it was time to wash everything, blankets, towels, sheets, all the heavy stuff along with the regular laundry. It seemed a sacrilege to add more heat to the atmosphere when I still have my "solar dryer".
In Portugal, women, whether they have automatic dryers or not, love to hang their wash on the line. You might say that folks today are missing something without the old clothesline in the back yard. Heck, a lot of people don't even have back yards.
As a kid in Michigan, my mom hung out the clothes while talking to the neighbor over the fence, catching up on the neighborhood gossip.
I would hand her items to hang and soon learned that towels go with towels. If hard pressed for space, they could double with the sheets, where the fabric dipped in the middle. She taught me that unmentionables are hung on the middle line where no one from the alley could see them.
In winter, clothing froze into boards and had to be removed and laid over indoor dowel dryers to finish the process.
The laundry kind of typified who you were in the world. Fancy slips or plain? A flowery blouse or go-to-church white? Overalls and work shirts? Or white shirts and slacks?
Then, it was sprinkling and ironing all those shirts and blouses.
My mother's old wringer washer did duty until 1954 when she got a Spindryer. What a marvelous invention. It washed much like any electrified agitating washer, but then the clothing was transferred to a second, smaller tub that spun the water out with centrifugal force. Then, it was a quick-dry on the line and fold and iron time.
We had migrated to California by then and the old formality of days gone by made the job easier. No white shirts for my brothers. T-shirts instead. Then polyester came into vogue and ironing was nearly eliminated. And, an automatic dryer almost eliminated the clothes line.
My job was folding mountains of clothes while listening to the radio.
I don't miss it one bit.
Even so, the satisfying smell of freshly laundered sheets, taken down from the line, folded neatly into a square brings back a lot of crazy memories of backyard washday.