Laundry Nights

In last week's post I wrote about the drought of 1960-61 where we learned to take a bath in a quart of water.

It soon became clear that we weren't going to get any rain in the immediate future, and that our 600 gallon cistern couldn't handle doing all the laundry for a family of four. That's when Steve and Nora Ellington stepped in and offered the use of their water, which was VERY generous.

They lived in a house they'd built on the hill above the Pond in Cruz Bay. It over-looked Frank Bay and St. Thomas.

"It's just the two of us," they said. "We have plenty of water. Why don't you come do your laundry at our house. We'll make an evening of it."

And we did.

On Wednesdays, after Dad got home from working at the garage (which you can read about here) and had gotten his greasy self cleaned up, we'd pile into the The Yellow Dragon (our jeep) with a week's worth of laundry. The road into Gifft Hill was still unpaved and required four wheel drive/low transfer to get over certain places which were a-kin to rock-climbing or crawling along a river-bed.

But we were used to it.

As we came through the door, the aroma of Nora's scrumptious spaghetti sauce titillated our noses . We were also met by three dogs: Freamus, the old man, Lollie, the rambunctious teen-ager and B.F. (Black Face) Barfington Van Woof, the pug.

Mom and Nora immediately got the laundry started. Erva and I set the table. Dad and Steve had a drink and discussed whatever it is men talk about when their women folk are busy with family work.

As soon as that first load was in we'd sit down to eat. Every Wednesday it was spaghetti with garlic bread and a salad. The three dogs would nose around the table and maybe if no one was looking they might get a nibble of bread. Barfington, with his smashed in black face snuffled and snorted the loudest and sometimes stood up on his hind legs and put his front paws on the chair. Lollie (named after the island Little Hans Lollik) had brown and white fur and long silky ears that got burrs in them. He'd moved from person to person like any hyper teen. Freamus, on the other hand, knew who the push-overs were and would patiently wait looking at you with those sad dog eyes. He had the Zen of begging down.

Freamus, or Frimfram as he was also called, was a sort of wire-haired dog, with longish white-blonde fur. He was plenty friendly enough except for one thing. We were not to touch the last few hairs on the tip of his tail. We could pat and pull his ears and rub his belly and play with his feet, but if we touched those last few hairs, well, we could expect to be roundly reprimanded with snarls and snaps. It was so weird. We could grab him by his tail, we could scratch it. Just not the tip. Of course we tried to sneak up him and see how lightly we could touch those hairs. But he couldn't be fooled. He must have had ten million nerve endings attached to those hairs because it didn't take anything for him to show his gums and cuss at us like we'd tromped on his tail.

When dinner was over, Mom and Nora did the dishes and continue with the laundry while Steve and Dad had another drink and talked man stuff. But for Erva and me the very best part of our evening had begun.

We would stretch out on the floor with the dogs and watch TV, a real treat for us as we had no TV. And Wednesday nights were the best because it was The Flintstones (the first prime-time cartoon series) followed by Gunsmoke. Stone Age man and a western. Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty. Matt, Miss Kitty, Doc and Chester.

By the time Gunsmoke was over, the laundry was washed, dried and folded and it was time to make the three mile drive back to Gifft Hill, which took a good 30 minutes or more. After all, it was a school night and by the time we got home it was long past our bed-time.

I don't know exactly how long we did our laundry at Steve and Nora's house, but I'd say it was probably four or five months. That's a lot of spaghetti and good times in front of the TV, not to mention trying to sneak up on the last three hairs of Frimfram's tail.

This is a picture of Mom (on the left) and Nora, midnight New Year's Day, 1960. That's Erva in the background. I slept through it.

And this is me and Nora about five years ago on a visit to St. Croix where she was living.

Here's to Wednesday nights. Dinner, laundry and a "movie."

P.S. Tomorrow, the 28th is my birthday.

The Sears Garage, 50 Years Later

Around 1959 my parents decided to open a gas station in Cruz Bay. My father, being an ace mechanic would also repair vehicles. The first thing we had to do was build the building. A Sears pre-fab was chosen, ordered and shipped to us from who knows where. The only thing we didn't do was dig out the foundation and pour the concrete slab. As for the rest of it, the four us built the two door garage entirely by ourselves. By 1960 we were open for business, selling Mobil gas. We also had the dealership for Jeep and Land Rover. This is Erva and me on opening day. Dad is just visible to the right. Erva was a tall lanky 14 year old, I was a tiny 10. For years people thought I was a lot younger because I was so small compared to her.

The picture below shows part of the pre-fab and the Mobil sign on the slab where the gas pump was. The siding on the garage was a pale pastel mint-green, pleasing and easy on the eye. See the block "cistern" to the left?

That's were the metal tank was that held the gas. The gas came in 55 gallon barrels that had to be pumped/dumped into the tank. Mom, Dad, Erva, me, and my cousins Frances and John, who were visiting from Puerto Rico, made a chain and hauled every single one of those concrete blocks from the place they were off-loaded to the site. The trailer in front of the cistern was also a Sear purchase and hauled everything from our boat the FDO, to rocks and furniture.

This is a picture of the concrete slab where the gas pump was. There was a rack next to it that held cans of oil.

Erva and I were the attendants. Erva handled the pump while I checked the water in the radiator and battery or washed wind shields. We also checked the oil and air in the tires. We were, as far as I know, the first and only female gas pump attendants ever on the island of St. John. Erva and I worked the pumps, whenever we weren't in school, for two years. When the power went out we could pump gas by hand. We were also grease monkeys. We washed parts and tools (in gasoline), sorted transistors, screws, nuts and bolts, and slapped undercoating (a tar-like substance) on the new Jeeps and Land Rovers when they arrived. We would wash ourselves off with kerosene or diesel fuel.

This is the Willies station wagon Dad painted. It was also our advertising. White roof, red above the chrome, blue below with a red Pegasus decal on the door.

That's me in the door, standing in front of Dad's motorcycle, the All State, yet another Sears purchase. All of us Virgin Islanders depended on Sears. They were reliable and trusted. The name Sears was gold.

In 1962 we closed the business and moved to St. Thomas. My father was physically exhausted and got a less physically demanding job as the chief engineer for the only TV station in the islands.

The Sears building evolved into other businesses. For many years it was a gift shop and restaurant called Islandia. I sold a lot of my shell and seed work there. The interior has been changed and altered but 50 years later the building still stands and is still in use. It has survived floods and hurricanes.The aluminum siding has never been repair or replaced, only painted various shades of yellow.

The roof is the same roof too.

Technically, at 50 years old, this Sear pre-fab could be considered an historic building. Certainly to our family it is. What's really nice is that we still own it. I wonder how many of these pre-fabs are still out there, and how many have been in continuous use since they were built? And how many of them are in the Caribbean? I would bet ours is the only one in the Virgin Islands. Do you think Sears would be interested in paying us to do an ad, you know like those Toyota truck owners whose trucks have gone like 400,000 miles? Do you think I should find an email address and send them a link to my blog so they can read this? 50 years! That's a lot of very loyal service.