Hot Irons

I was reading my wife's post about ironing sheets, smoking irons and buying new irons and I wanted to make a comment. But, it turns out I had more to say on the subject than space would allow. So viola...a post for me.

I can remember when I was real young watching my grandma and my mom ironing. I was real young but I can still see grandma heating up her irons on the stove. Yup, on the stove. She had two cast iron irons and she would heat up the irons, use one until it cooled then put it back on the stove and take the other one and continue. Now, I don't know if grandpa would ever ask to have his sheets ironed or not, but if he did I can imagine the look he would get. Back in those days we didn't have permanent press or wrinkle guard. All our cloths came fresh off the line. And very wrinkled so mom and grandma ironed a lot. They did finally buy an electric iron. A big black thing with an electrical cord that was fabric covered and had white stripes in it. Our cloths still came fresh off the cloths line but now they could iron a shirt in one shot. No more swapping out. Oh yeah, the iron was NOT a steam iron. Mom would keep a cup of water next the the ironing board and use her fingers to sprinkle water on the fabric.

When I got older, about Boy Scout age, mom taught me how to iron. I learned how to iron pants and shirts. I used to enjoy ironing. When I grew up and joined the Air Force I was the only guy in the barracks in Italy that wore pressed utilities. All the other troops wore theirs right out of the dryer. They walked around looking like a stack of dirty laundry while I had on a crisply ironed uniform.

I never, repeat, NEVER, ironed sheets.