THOMAS WOLFE STYLE WITH ASHEVILLE LAUNDRY

From the fireplace. Image via DG Studios

What is Thomas Wolfe Style? Keep reading.

Here in Thomas Wolfe’s hometown, I mean Asheville, as much a home as he ever had since he liked to keep moving, I’m doing laundry at the Dixieland Laundry on a Friday afternoon.

From the looks of things I’m probably the only washer headed back to Grove Park Inn after the drying and folding.

Why would someone staying at a luxury resort take their laundry to the coin-op?

From more experience than most, since few readers have probably hit a European laundry instead of touristing around all the time, you learn a place by it’s laundromats.

You learn about the people when you ask resort staff where to find the nearest offsite laundry.

“I can’t tell you because I actually have a washing machine and do my laundry at home.”

A whisper of advice said, “You do have a smart phone? Ask google. That’s what I always do.”

The baby boomer advice I didn’t share was we like hearing someone’s voice, even if it’s not very helpful, even if it conveys small shame. The phone is the last resort, and I use it all the time, just not this time.

The man at valet parking nailed it shorter than Thomas Wolfe style.

“Left on Charlotte after Fudruckers, right on Chestnut past the caution lights, then a right on Merriman.”

It all started so well with a planned bank stop to cash up, a laundry stop to clean up, and an ABC store to gin up. Gin and laundry are a good match, but instead of lounging around a laundromat I planned to drop off and pick up while I toured Thomas Wolfe’s house, or more correctly Wolfey’s momma’s boarding house, and soak in that rare mountain air.

Except it’s Friday and the lady at the dry cleaner said she’d do my laundry but it wouldn’t be ready until the following Monday, when I’ll be in northern Virginia instead of North Carolina.

I needed it done today and asked where the coin-op place was, and could she break a twenty.

She opened a cash drawer full of money, I saw it stacked in there, and said she couldn’t break a twenty. She looked me right in the eye, a meaningful look, like I’d just asked her to iron my sheets, like she enjoyed telling men no, like she wished I had Thomas Wolfe style.

I already knew where the laundromat was, since I passed it on the way to the bank, the same laundromat she passed everyday on her way to work. I told her I was from Oregon, where people show up lost from one bad sign or another, like Move To Oregon And Be Weird, where lost people find their way, and so would I.

She smiled, head nodding, and pointed down the road.

“Go about a half mile and it’s behind the Wendy’s.”

“Perfect. I’ll crack that twenty on a fat burger before I go in,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.

Instead of stopping for change, I headed right in and put the twenty in the coin machine. Remember when high rollers in Las Vegas used to walk around with a drink cup full of quarters, one hand blackened from pulling jackpots out of slot machine troughs? The twenty in the laundromat coin machine rained quarters like a jackpot, which made me feel like a winner. That’s what twenty dollars in quarters feels like.

From washer to dryer I thought to ask others at the change machine if they would buy back my quarters, and they did, just not enough. The Dixieland Laundry is one of those places with a service window, and I decided to ask the woman inside if she bought back quarters.

A young mom worked the books with her three year old watching from a chair. Before I said a word, she asked, “What do you want?”

Looking over her glasses reminded me she probably got more questions than she wanted to answer, and mine would be as lame as the rest. Her hair was pulled back so tight it stretched her face.

What do I want? Thomas Wolfe style for starters.

I wanted her and her daughter in a park, at a picnic, playing on the playground, running around with their friends, while parents sat in the shade with a cooler, not spending a hot summer day trapped with steamy laundry.

“Could you spare a few pieces of paper and pen? I’ll bring the pen back.”

One sheet of paper and a boogery pen later I wrote while the machines hummed and churned, writing in print so small I’d need my cryptography skills, which I don’t have, to make sense.

Just so you know, Asheville laundromats and luxury resorts have a few things in common, the biggest, and most obvious, are tall back rocking chairs. Grove Park Inn scatters hundreds of them in front of scenic views, while Dixieland Laundry has ten onsite.

Instead of the one piece plastic shell with metal pipe legs, the sort you sit in too long and stand up with a sweat stain that looks like you’ve wet your pants, the slatted seats of the rockers delivered ventilation. You still might sweat out, but at least you’ll stand with sweat stripes.

What did I learn at the Dixieland Laundry? Like a luxury resort works to ease your mind, to clear space upstairs, the Asheville laundromat works to clean your clothes and your mind with zen precision, and you don’t need to hum.

The dryer hums for you. All you need to do is rock. You remember how to rock, don’t you? Follow blogger instructions on BoomerPdx where this blog writer lays it out for you.

Or call room service. What would Thomas Wolfe style do?