Washer Christmas Stories-- What a cool idea!
Slow and cagey at first, I got my first TOL red-trimmed 2 speed Easy spin from an Antique Store right on the main drag, near my old flat. Twenty-five bucks, not bad. I can afford this. Then a neighbor across the street from my BF threw out a Unimatic, an odd model I haven't seen since. Broken timer, stopped after wash spin. Who cares? Not me! Free. Loved it. This was in the seventies.
Next, I met a cool old guy names Kolpiski who had a Maytag store on Broadway, and the wringer odyssey began. ( A few of these were around in my childhood, but not in my family except for my Great Aunt Mary, and she rarely used it. But that is when I loved wringers, a GE which followed me to college.) Mr K sold me a Norge wringer.I was re-hooked. After the Frigi died I bought a new Norge Burper, and was smitten.
When I bought my house here, Mr K, was closing shop, and I got a Speed Queen and Maytag J2L with a pump. One day on a bike ride in Little Italy near the Peace Bridge, I scored a 25 dollar A 50, for later pick-up.
About ten years ago, my friend Mad Dog gave me his 78 GE Filter Flo, and my Aunt Alice gave me her 77 WP Golden Imperial. By now I was self-conscious about having
8 surviving washing machines. People were always curious and thought it just my little kink. NO ONE, I knew liked washing machines except me. I just accepted the eccentricity and grew accustomed to being the only one. Being gay, I knew that road from early on.
Eureka! One new Years Day morning, seven odd years ago, I was googling washers, and Automatic Washer popped up. I swear to you I died and went to heaven that day. Seeing so many spectacular machines and so many wonderful men collecting them, pictures, texts, repairs, stories--I went nuts, and have never been the same since. I had found a community of men who were just like me in more ways than one. It was like finding the tribe you had been separated from at birth.
I talked to a former member names Greg, who sold me a 43 Turk LK, and gave me three machines that had issues. A 78 GE, a 68 Easy Spin, a 62 Multimatic. Now I was getting serious. I flew to Boston, rented a truck, drove home. A little later, the LTC comes by, to find me playing with the machines right on the U-haul using an extension cord and the garden hose. He is awestruck. We unload, and he says: "You're really into now."
Indeed. Never going back, and never leaving here.
