The Riverside Laundromat in Ovid, Michigan
My laundry experience began in Mr Dryer's laundromat in Richwood, West Virginia when I was in the fourth grade. I'm not sure how it got started, but my thought today is that I was the oldest of four children by at least four years. That would have made me nine years old then.
The laundromat was across the river not quite a 1/4 a mile from our house my Mother had on Boggs Avenue just south of the river and east of the Holy Family Catholic Church.
The building was next the the A&P Grocer Store. It had a glass front and about 20 feet wide by 40 feet deep. It was bright white. Washers were in a back-to-back row down the center of the building, and dryers were on the north wall. Every week I would go. I remember ladies always asking me questions about why I was doing the laundry and where was my Mother. I hated those questions. I used to make up answers in hopes I believe they would leave me alone.
Mr Dryer was always there cleaning or maintaining his machines. I remember him as a kind man with a white mustache. There was detergent, candy and cigarette vending machines in the building.It was seldom I had anything extra to get something the machine. Times were very tight in those days.
Why was I in the laundromat. Well, I'm in Michigan getting the house ready for our upcoming move, and we don't have everything from out west yet. Work on the house is going slowly as I find more opportunities of things to fix. More on that later.
