COLUMN: It's Just a Country State of Mind: My mother's old Maytag

When I was a child, I used to sit and watch my mother wash the laundry in her Maytag wringer washer. The washer came with two tubs used for rinsing. My mother took the clothes out the water from the clothes. Even though there were other brands available, my mother was a Maytag woman.

Maytag washers typically lasted for about 10 years. They were known for their durability. They first started making them in 1907 and stopped making them in 1983.

It was common to find one of these washers in every household. Ours was in our kitchen, back in the corner. We had a pretty big kitchen area back then. In the farmhouse kitchen, which pretty much had room for everything.

My mother stayed home with me until I started school. Mondays were wash days at our house. After the clothes were washed, they were carefully hung out on a clothesline to dry. So, every week I watched my mother wash the clothes in the wringer washer. Usually, she had to hook a hose up to the kitchen faucet to fill up the washer. Then she would dug it in and start it up. I will put the clothes. The clothes sloshed back and forth inside the tub for an appropriate period of time, until my mother thought they were clean. Then she would drain the water from the washer back into the sink and then began to put the clothes through the wringers.

Our washer was an electric one and so the wringers worked by electricity. There was a lever to turn them on. There was also a release bar that you could push if the clothes got stuck in the wringers or if a hand happened to get stuck in the wringers. My mother had never had her wringers, but she knew of many times about not getting my hands near the wringers.

One day, our phone rang, and my mother had had to go answer it. She paused what she was doing and went across and wringers and went to take the call. She left me in the kitchen by myself. I could hear her talking in the other room. I looked into the washer and saw that there was still some laundry that needed to be wrung out. I thought I would help my wringers. I decided to surprise my mother and help finish some of the clothes. So, I hit the button that started the wringers, picked up a shirt, and began to hold it through as I had watched my mother do countless times. Only it didn't quite wring the shirt. My fingers somehow got in the way and began to go through the wringers.

I started to scream and cry and tried to pull my fingers out of the death grip that the washer had on me. But they were held fast and I couldn't get my fingers out. I pulled the worse I got, I continued to scream until suddenly I heard my mother running towards me. She pushed the release button that stopped the wringer, and then she pushed the release bar, and then the wringers with it opened up. I was able to pull my fingers out. I had my mother put my hand under cold water to ease the pain. she checked out my hand and applied an ice pack, the lecture began. I thought to myself that having my hand stuck in the wringer was punishment enough!

When my mother, a lecture always began by her telling me, "I've told you a dozen times...". I think the lecture was a way of her to take care of herself and the that I would try to do a load of laundry in it. That old childhood trauma of having my finger stuck in that thing some back in an instant. But Stix on a that moment. But I was very careful, and I'm proud to say I got every piece of laundry wrung out without incident.

Nostalgia can be painful if I listen to this day, every time I see a Maytag washer, I think about those days, I sure miss that old Maytag.

And I miss the days of sitting at my mother's feet while she did the laundry. I don't miss those wringers at all. They say that facing childhood fears is a good thing.

Maybe so. But I think not getting your fingers stuck in an old Maytag washer is a much better thing. Yep! Those Maytags really were the best!

—Susan