Fond Memories of Doing the Dishes

I grew up in a family of seven children with a father who brought home the “bacon” and a mother who was a fine short-order breakfast cook and bag lunch-maker but had a more difficult time at dinner.

At 6 o’clock every evening, we all gathered around the lace-clothed dining room table. I was usually responsible for setting the silverware, glasses and napkins for nine people. The four boys were mostly relegated to taking out the trash, picking up after the dog in the yard and mowing the lawn on occasion. The two older girls, my sister and I, cleared the table and washed the dishes. The baby sister was not assigned many chores until her older siblings had moved out to go to college.

My mother was not a bad cook, but she was no chef either in our old-fashioned ’50s kitchen. She cooked with old copper-bottom Revere Ware from her wedding collection on an electric four-burner stove; she used the two electric ovens for her weekly chicken cacciatore and Lipton onion soup meatloaf in the roasting pan with darkened grease-marked sides and glass Pyrex loaf pans with the same brown designs on the edges.

We ate on a variety of CorningWare dish sets or cheap imitation ceramic plates and bowls. On Sundays, we used the fine china, made with a cobalt blue design, and the sterling silverware.

So I have set you up for what has become my favorite aspect of the family meal — doing the dishes.

We had a KitchenAid dishwasher with a yellow front to match the yellow metal cabinets and a single porcelain white sink with garbage disposal. My sister and I would clear the plates and glasses after meals, stack them all to the right of the sink and use teamwork in rinsing and washing and placing all the dishes in the dishwasher or on the drying rack.

We’d get the dishwasher loaded and pour in the Cascade crystals, shut the door and hit start. Then we used flour bag dishtowels to dry the pots and pans and Pyrex and other cooking items that didn’t go in the dishwasher.

What made dishwashing fun and easy was that my sister and I would sing throughout. I miss those good old days.

Even now, I find dishwashing my favorite part of any meal that involves more than me eating alone in my recliner. Singing still makes it all the more fun.

Joanne McGarry does her dishwashing in Eureka.