The good old days at home sweet home

The good old days at home sweet home by Marge Piercy On Monday my mother washed. It was the way of the world, all those lines of sheets flapping in the narrow yards of the neighborhood, the pulleys stretching out second and third floor windows. Down in the dank steamy basement, wash tubs vast and grey, the wringer sliding between the washer and each tub. At least every year she or I caught a hand in it. Tuesday my mother ironed. One iron was the mangle. She sat at it feeding in towels, sheets, pillow cases. The hand ironing began with my father's underwear. She ironed his shorts. She ironed his socks. She ironed his undershirts. Then came the shirts, a half hour to each, the starch boiling on the stove. I forgot bluing. I forgot the props that held up the line clattering down. I forgot chasing the pigeons that shat on her billowing housedresses. I forgot clothespins in the teeth. Tuesday my mother ironed my father's underwear. Wednesday she mended, darned socks on a wooden egg. Shined shoes. Thursday she scrubbed floors. Put down newspapers to keep them clean. Friday she vacuumed, dusted, polished, scraped, waxed, pummeled. How did you become a feminist interviewers always ask, as if to say, when did this rare virus attack your brain? It could have been Sunday when she washed the windows, Thursday when she burned the trash, bought groceries hauling the heavy bags home. It could have been any day she did again and again what time and dust obliterated at once until stroke broke her open. I think it was Tuesday when she ironed my father's shorts. "The good old days at home sweet home" by Marge Piercy, fromColors Passing Through Us. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.