Embracing the Old Fashioned Ways

Hanging clothes outdoors to dry; making a 'real' milkshake or your own preserves--these are some of the pleasures that have nearly become lost. By Jim Kundreskas

Date published: 6/24/2006

MY WIFE IS a schoolteacher, and for the past week or so, she has had a bit of welcome and well-earned free time on her hands.

Little Wayne, Terry, Jeff and Davey are home and aggravating their own families for a while now.

And with that extra time, my bride has also started being a bit more frugal. After washing our clothes in the Kenmore Super Duty 12-cycle enhanced-action washer, she now skips that fancy matching Kenmore electric dryer and just takes them outside to hang out on the line.

I love it. Not only because we're saving money and doing something nice for the environment, but rather for the way clothes feel after being hung outside to dry in the sun.

My shirts are stiff and scratchy, the bath towels are relatively hard, and even my cotton socks feel rough to the touch.

It's great, and this reminds me of how clothes always felt when I was a little kid growing up.

It just seems so right.

Sure, the whole wash load isn't soft and fluffy, nor does it smell like chrysanthemum floral arrangements at a bar mitzvah, but it's natural, and that ordinary outdoors aroma is just fine with me.

This new clothes-washing approach got me thinking about other modern conveniences we have today that might be better given a rest in favor of the older modes or models.

Milkshakes immediately come to mind. When you order such a drink at a fast-food restaurant, most people just say, "Let me have a chocolate shake."

We don't even call them ice cream shakes or milkshakes anymore.

Those artificially flavored concoctions you get from under the golden arches today are just plain shakes.

We can do better, for genuine milkshakes are still possible at ice cream parlors, Dairy Queens and even some mom-and-pop stores today.

These places scoop in real ice cream, open up an unadulterated container of milk and splash some in there and maybe add some chocolate syrup. "Brrrrrrrrrr" goes the mixer and pretty soon the customer is handed a bona fide ice cream milkshake.

Between that fast-food shake that took only a push of a button to make, and the milkshake where the clerk actually had to do a little mixing, pouring and grinding to prepare it for you, which one do you think tastes better?

It's no contest.

Some foods we make ourselves are superior to anything you can buy in stores anywhere.

We have wild blackberries popping up all around our house. From the look of the growth so far this spring, it appears we're going to have a bumper crop of berries this year. I'll pick them, and my wife will take those berries, along with a little pectin and sugar, and turn them into the most mouth-watering preserves any man who has ever walked this Earth has tasted. I'm so sorry to all the good folks at Smuckers, Welch's and Richfood, but my wife's blackberry preserves puts all your best efforts to shame.

We've got some tomatoes already in our garden just starting to turn red. I don't care what deli or sandwich shop you hold in highest esteem--tell me what tastes better than a fat slice of home-grown tomato on soft bread with a little mayo and salt and pepper added?

Yes indeed, simple is better when it comes to a tomato sandwich.

Here at this house, we use the heat pump out back to provide central air conditioning during the hot summer days.

Oh, it feels plenty good coming indoors after being outside with the sweat burning your eyes, or your shirt simply dripping with moisture.

Still, when it starts cooling off in the evenings, that expensive machine is turned off and the windows are quickly opened. The breezes, either natural or helped along a little with a window fan, are absolutely nicer than the artificial cool of any AC unit.

Even children can sense that the old way of doing things was sometimes better.

When our own kids were little, we bought them a fancy swing set with teeter-totters, double swings, a sliding board and even a little trapezelike bar to hang on upside down.

Previous to that purchase, I had rigged a homemade swing from an old tire tied up in a big oak tree with a sturdy piece of rope.

Yep, you probably guessed it. The kids usually preferred to play on the tire swing.

Well, those children are grown up now, and that fancy store-bought swing set has long ago rusted out and is gone now from our yard. However, the tire swing lives on, and my new granddaughter was sitting on top of it just the other day.

I think I might replace the rope just to be sure.

You know, I'm not opposed to progress, it's just that sometimes the old standbys are actually better than the new and improved products.

Microwave ovens are a great example. This invention is probably one of the greatest things ever to come along, ranking right up there with sliced bread and indoor plumbing.

How easy is it now to "nuke" a little water and put in a tea bag for a nice cup of hot tea?

Yes indeed, it just couldn't be easier.

Then, how come the tea always tastes just a little bit better when the water is poured from the antique copper kettle whistling on the stove?

Now, here's an idea. Remember me discussing how we wash the clothes now in that Kenmore washer?

I wonder, do they still make washtubs? I think I saw washboards for sale in some magazine recently. I absolutely did notice "Grandma's lye soap" for sale in our local hardware store in Louisa last week.

Yeah, like that suggestion wouldn't get the keys to my John Deere taken away, and I'd be cutting the lawn in the future on my hands and knees with a sickle.

JIM KUNDRESKAS of Louisa County near Lake Anna has been an outdoors writer for more than 20 years.