jim washer

JIM WASHER


I’m almost at the one thousand article mark which means that Google, unless they have since changed their policy, will start deleting my first articles. You are only allowed to have 1k. I have the first several months as e-books, but I’m really not looking forward to scrambling to cut and paste all the rest into issues of The Chicken Little Magazine to preserve them ( I don’t have back up copies for the articles at home, since I stopped keeping them once my floppy discs became obsolete ). My unpaid help did several issues for me and then stopped. I would have also. If I let them start deleting, can one of you volunteer to cut and paste two months at a time ( just the article, no comments )? I can give you some small compensation such as free e-books or I’ll send a few issues of Foxfire. If not, should I just start another blog page so nothing old is lost as free reading? Do you care? Let me know if you think I should start a new page and leave the old as achieves or I should just leave them to be deleted.

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Okay, I didn’t want to have to do this but my hand was forced. I don’t know how long each of you has been reading, but in case you are wondering, I usually feel I have the best way of doing things and everyone else is wrong. No offense. I’m reading the Three Amigo’s yesterday and their writing contest award went to an article on hand washing clothes off grid. http://tslrf.blogspot.com/ . Typical advice on using the toilet plunger in a bucket ( or the Lehman’s metal version ). That’s super duper hunky dory advice, you proclaim, surprised at my outburst and a little disappointed at my tone of voice. Well, it was. But that is so Old School. Now, after years of research and investment from the government, a better solution is at hand. It is called, with all due modesty, the Jim Washer.

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Between two and a half and three years ago, I wrote an article on the Jim Washer. I couldn’t find it for the link, but it is there somewhere. Listen, I have been repeatedly accused of just dredging up old crap from the seventies and replaying it. To an extent that is true when I find old books unheard of now and find good ideas. Or, such as when I discount semi-autos not because they aren’t fun or neat or a cool boy toy but because they absolutely positively will run out of ammunition far too quickly for 90% of survivalists ( discounting the ten percent that stockpile by the tens of thousands ), I simply disregard decades of new thought and stay firmly back in the past. Believe it or not, a seventies survivalist wasn’t automatically enamored with the M-16 but most likely had a deer rifle or lever action. But I digress. A lot of things are simply better the old way. But I will admit to having very few totally original thoughts. I was one of the first to be pushing LED lights about seven years ago or so. Not that I can really count that one. But I do claim, for the record, to be original in my idea of the Jim Washer. I racked my brain for months and months until it finally clicked. If you had smelled the burning ozone you would understand why I’m justifiably proud on this achievement ( if there exists an obscure article on it somewhere, I’ve never seen it. If anyone can prove such, I swear I’m not trying to rip off an idea. I simply never ran across it as far as I can remember ).

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The James Washer is what looks like a 55 gallon metal barrel cut down in half with the open middle having a lid placed on it. Placed long ways on a set of legs to be hip level. Add water and soap and clothes. Grad the handle and rock back and forth to agitate the clothes. Use the wringer to get the water out of the fabric. Great idea, but horribly expensive. Like in the four hundred dollar range. The wringer is extra. My idea ( theirs is the James Washer, mine is the Jim Washer- get it? ) is to use a rocking chair and a five gallon bucket strapped down ( two, if it fits on the seat ). A lid on the bucket. Then, you use your legs on the leg back brace to keep the unit rocking back and forth. It is far easier to use your legs with their stronger muscles than your arms and back to power something. Plus, with a used rocking chair from a thrift shop, it costs almost nothing. The wringer is a mop bucket. Thirty five bucks at Wal-Mart or Home Depot. The wringer idea isn’t mine, I got that from a hurricane survivor on a survival forum. You can read a book or watch TV while you wash the clothes, almost like now. My idea is a lot easier, and barely more expensive than a plunger in a bucket. Mine. My idea. Mine. My Precious, My precious!

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