99/100% PURE - POOH! SAYS I !!

They say scents evoke memories - well, here's one of mine...

See that wood and metal thingy above? That is a washboard! Bev had a picture of one on her blog not too long ago and said how she had never had to use one. Be so thankful dear Bev! So very thankful. Even though I'm not, nor ever was, a pioneer, my fingers still recall the feel of one of those boards. My nose on the other hand (well, actually it's on my face - not a hand - let alone the other - o, never mind, I'm sure you get it) sniffs in the aroma-memory of a bar of Ivory Soap AND my baby brother's diapers. Did I just say aroma? - could I really mean stench? That odor, smell, whatever - will forever be ONE in my olfactory memory! Ivory Soap = baby pooh period.

Here's how it went down for me. Baby brother does a number in his diaper. Some one changes him into a fresh one and the soiled diaper must be dealt with. That's where I come in. Picking up the usually damp as well as smelly package very gingerly with thumb and forefinger so as to make contact with as little area of diaper as possible, I rush to the bathroom (hoping none of my other siblings are occupying it so I can get this dastardly deed done with haste), and deposit the stuff in the toilet. If it wasn't solid, it also required a bit of swishing, gag, bleh, gag, and wringing eew gross. All this is done while breathing through my very narrowly opened mouth. Then it was off to the back porch utility sink to let said diaper soak in cold water until a few were ready for me to use the washboard. OK, maybe it was more than a few, as I so dreaded this job. Getting to it meant having that smell... Here's how it's done. Prop washboard at an angle against side of sink. Lay stained part of diaper on washboard and with left hand hold onto the diaper and washboard together while with the right hand holding the bar of Ivory Soap you vigorously scrub the stain, and scrub and scrub. Then without rinsing the Ivory Soap out of the diaper, you wring it out and hang it on the clothesline in full sunshine. {I could not get the smell of the Ivory Soap/Pooh off me without drastic measures. Scrubbing myself with that scratchy grey Lava soap, and then peeling oranges or lemons or grapefruit and rubbing the peel on my hands and arms.} The Ivory Soap and the sun bleach the stains from the diapers, but not the smell. When they are dry, they go into the laundry where MOM takes over and rinses them in cold water before washing them in scalding hot water, rinsing them again in cold and hanging them back on the line to dry. Bringing them in off the line and folding them also fell on yours truly many times.

I have to tell you that they were the whitest diapers ever!

But, still to this day the smell of Ivory Soap equals baby pooh!