I always hated to do laundry.  When I was growing up, we learned early how to do laundry.  Our washer and dryer were in the basement, in the room with the sump pump (which always freaked me out), the utility sink, the extra freezer and the dreaded ironing board.

I look back now and realize how lucky we were.  Not everyone had washers AND driers.  Often only a washer.  I would give anything to have an actual “utility sink” now and while I truly hate to iron, its something that every boy and girl should learn how to do.

Being the only girl to a working mother, she taught me how to do laundry fairly early.  “Separate the colors from the whites”; “pre-soak the laundry in the utility sink if there is a stain”.   My mom had some friend who sold Amway, so we used Amway Laundry Detergent way back in the early 70’s before I understood what a Pyramid Scheme was.  It makes sense now, though, why my mom avoided that woman like the plague after some time.  Learning to iron, I recall spending hours in the basement, in poor lighting, practicing by ironing my dads hankerchieves and boxer shorts.

But the laundry basket was the most memorable thing of all.  After I moved out of the house, first off to school, then home, then out again and being in a position where I had to do my own laundry, I have gone through many iterations of the perfect laundry basket.  NONE of them held up to the laundry basket my mom had.  One could draw an analogy to Goldie Locks; One was too small, One was too plastic, One was too floppy.  There was no laundry basket that fit the bill of the one my mother had.  Her laundry basket was round, not oval as many wicker ones today are.  The handles were also wicker and weaved into the basket.  It was hand-made, not machined so the weave was perfectly done for each individual piece of wood.  It was smooth on the inside and out, almost as though it was oiled, not made of rough, cheap wood like the ones found today so it didn’t pull on your clothing and over time it weathered and gained a patina.

When I bought my first house my mom gave me her old laundry basket.  It was like giving laundry a new life.  It’s the perfect size, a large opening, wicker, sturdy handles.   This laundry basket was purchased by my mother in the early 1950’s after my parents built the home I grew up in in 1948 and were preparing to start a family.  I have had it for over 30 years and have hauled laundry to and from laundry mats, up and down stairs, raised 2 kids who never wear the same pair of jeans 2 days in a row in addition to beach towels and more.  Last year one of the handles came apart and I have actually considered finding someone to put a new one on.

Yes, it may be an odd thing to get attached to, but I must say if you had the same laundry basket I do, you would nod in understanding.  And heck, its over 60 years old!  At this rate, it may become one of my kids…..

Imagine that – a hand-me-down laundry basket.

Tomorrow will be the 10 year anniversary of my father’s passing.  It occurs to me that so many people who are important to me never got to meet my dad and while there are far too many hilarious stories I could tell, one that I tell so very often I would share again.

My dad was a Lineman for Commonwealth Edison power company in Chicago.  His main dispatch location was out of the Skokie Road office in Northfield, Illinois;  not too awfully far from our house.  Some of the little things I remember from being a little girl include that he was never home at Christmas because working a holiday was triple-pay, but he always managed to make it home for us to open presents and would park his bucket truck in the driveway so he could see the flashing light in the dash indicating he had a dispatch call coming through.  He often slept on the floor in the living room right in front of the heater vent in the winter because he was always cold from working outside.  He had the roughest hands from the weather and used this horrible stuff called Corn Huskers Lotion to try to make them smoother – it didn’t work.  He had round scars on both his hands where he had been electrocuted as a young lineman and the scars were where the electricity escaped his body.

But one of my favorite memories came back to me not long before I moved from Chicago to Virginia.  In November 1996 I had a business friend visit (actually the person who introduced me to Michael) and I took the afternoon off to take him downtown to see the city.  He had been to our offices so many times before but had never seen the city as a tourist.   So we headed downtown and started with a drive down Lake Shore Drive and out to the Planetarium to take in the view of the city then made our way to the Sears Tower to the observation deck.  On the Sears Tower tour, the first thing you do is watch a video of the building of the tower.  As we sat there watching the video, I had a flashback………………….

When I was about 10 years old, the Sears Tower was under construction and was about the biggest thing to happen to Chicago and the United States since the 1920’s.  The new sky scraper was going to be the tallest building in the world, taking over the Empire State Building by at least 10 floors.  One afternoon in the summer while my dad was working he came home with his bucket truck.  A bucket truck is the kind used by a lineman from the telephone or electric company where the worker gets into the bucket and can operate it from inside the bucket or someone can operate it from the ground.  Raise the bucket high to get to the wires.  This replaced linemen from having to manually climb the poles as they had to in the 50’s and 60’s.

My dad came home knowing my brother Keith and I were home and it was a clear day.  Every once in awhile he would do this to give us and some of the neighbor kids a ride in the bucket.  On this day, he came home to give us a surprise.  I can remember like it was yesterday with my dad in the bucket with me, raising the bucket on its post as high as it could go and pointing to show me which way to look until I saw the shell of the Sears Tower in the distance.  It was just the steel girders, like a skeleton, but you could make it out. After I went, my brother went, then a few neighborhood kids, then I went again.

I had completely forgotten about that until sitting watching that movie and their was a shot of the skeleton as viewed from north of the city – just like my view was that beautiful day in 1972.   The tower was completed in 1973 and it would take another 23 years before I would cross the threshold for the first time and be reminded of my dad making a special trip home with his truck to show us from right in our driveway.

Michael and I were lucky enough to go to Bermuda a few months ago and in our trek to the Governor’s fort, I found this picture of a Bermuda Lineman, whom they call a “Kiteman”. Yup, put on some long underwear and a CarHart insulated jumper along with the rest of the equipment and that would be my dad. The green glass are insulators which can be found at the top of the   T-posts on a power line.  This insulates where the two lines meet and are tied off.  I don’t think we had a door in our entire house that wasn’t held open by one of these green glass insulators.

As an adult with kids now, I see the little things Dad’s do for their kids that go unnoticed or are so subtle the kids don’t get what’s happening at the time.  My hope would be that as they get older they find the same appreciation for those little things their dads did for them as I had and still have for my dad.

I have so many great stories about my dad I will have to share, but this one is definitely a favorite.

Miss you Dad