The Perfect Day

I have always been a fan of clotheslines . It was a major element of laundry day when I was growing up. There were no alternatives for us. What was a clothes dryer? The folding wooden rack used in winter to thaw and dry frozen clothes next to the wood stove . Salt in the second rinse water didn't always work .  Or the line , stretched out from the clothesline stand pole out back to the pole at the edge of the bush .


Every time Laundry Day approached - yes, there was an assigned day when using a wringer washer and rinse tubs- we would look to the skies  and cross our fingers for the 'Perfect Day'.

A Tornado Wind

In later years , after McKerrow , my Dad often referred to the tornado that past through McKerrow and ended at Lake Agnew . He described a wind that ripped off roofs and tore out trees that crossed the tracks a mile from the house and cut a swath on a path to the lake .

 At the lake , the devastation that only a tornado can cause abruptly ended , dumping large amounts of debris into the south end water . He recalls seeing fascinating things such as a small tree branch driven through some one's roof board , and surrounding trees with pieces of grass driven straight into the wood . He talked of roof peaks poking out of the lake as well as all sorts of household debris floating there with trees and mats of grass .