I do the

laundry at our house. Sometimes, men who hear me say that

snicker and act as though they feel sorry for me. Some

have intimated that I must be henpecked. After all, they

surmise, real men don't do laundry.

Nevertheless,

several times a week, I separate the whites from the

coloreds, the specials from the regulars, and wash, dry

and fold the clothes, including the sheets and towels. I

put up my things and my wife puts up her things and the

sheets and towels. I have now done the laundry for our

family for some 28 years.

It all

started in 1972 when I was stationed at Quantico Marine

Corps Base, Virginia. Each and every Saturday, Cindy

would pack up the dirty clothes and, along with our

newborn son, head off to the laundromat for several

hours. I would stay in the apartment and read, watch TV,

and rest from all the "Marine stuff" I had

endured during the week. Real men, I believed, become

couch potatoes on Saturday.

One

Saturday, tired of feeling like I was loafing while she

worked, I rode with her to the laundromat. As we

approached the place where the dirty was made clean, I

was appalled at both the location and the condition of

the place.

The

laundromat, the closest one to our home, was in a seedy

section of the county and the clientele was of a rough

nature. The truth is that the place was unsafe for anyone

to be there for several hours. A pretty 20-year-old woman

with a small baby had no business alone in this place.

So, being

the hero that I am, I began to accompany her to provide

protection while she did the laundry. I still read and

relaxed, but at least she wasn't alone and unattended.

Ultimately,

I began to help her fold the clothes and put them in the

basket after they came out of the dryer. Then one

Saturday, the baby was sick. I volunteered to take the

clothes to the laundromat and wash and dry them. Her task

would be to fold and put up the clothes when I returned

home.

That's how

I began to do the laundry at our house. Eventually, I

discovered that whites come out of the dryer faster than

the coloreds, and that specials dry much more rapidly

than regulars. It seemed a waste of time just to watch

the bundle of wrinkled, but dry, clothes sit in the

basket so I began to fold the clothes, as well.

Soon, I was

bringing the washed, dried and folded clothes back to our

apartment where Cindy would put them in the proper

places. And so it went for the remainder of my tour in

the Marine Corps.

After my

discharge, we moved to eastern Tennessee where I enrolled

in the local university. We reverted to our old pattern

of doing the laundry with Cindy taking the toddler and

the clothes to the laundromat a few miles from the

campus. This was my time to study.

But, as

they say, history has a way of repeating itself. One day

I drove past the laundromat near the campus and

discovered that this place, like the one in Quantico, was

a dump populated by a rough crowd.

Please

allow me to hasten to add that most laundromats are

well-run, safe and used by wonderful, moral and gentle

people. But the laundromats in Quantico and Tennessee

were dumps. They were also, in my opinion, unsafe. So,

resuming my role as the family hero, I began doing the

laundry again.

Eventually,

I would graduate from the university and we would

purchase a washer and dryer. But it's funny how old

habits die hard. I found myself automatically putting

soiled clothes in little, appropriate piles. The whites

in one pile, the coloreds in another, the specials in yet

another, and... well, you get the idea.

At the

supermarket, while most men were looking at the steaks in

the meat department or searching for

"instant-light" charcoal for the grill, I would

be comparing the relative price and strength of the

various brands of laundry detergent. I discovered, in my

quest for the perfect detergent, that liquid detergent

was better for the septic system than the powdered stuff

and I also discovered that fabric softener and spot

remover were modern miracles.

As the

family grew to include three sons, they, too, began to

assist in the laundry detail. Whereas in the past Cindy

had folded and put up the clothes, now that task fell to

my three sons. For nearly 20 years, my wife never even

thought about any aspect of the laundry. We, the men of

the family, did it all.

Now that we

are pretty much empty-nesters, the task of putting up the

clean clothes falls to my wife. I do all the rest.

I have a

friend named Bill who is a paramedic and firefighter, a

macho guy if there ever was one. Here is a man who saves

lives and runs into burning buildings to search for

victims at the risk of his own life. yet, in a moment of

honest reflection, Bill shared that he did the laundry at

his house, too.

It was a

hushed moment as the sacred secret was told. I felt a

strange, new kinship with him as he made that personal

revelation. I understood and recognized, as I nodded

solemnly, that Bill, in his house, is a hero too.

Twenty-eight

years of laundry duty have taught me this truth -

"Real men do laundry." And if you doubt that,

just ask your wife.

The Rev.

David Epps is pastor of Christ the King Church, serving

south metro Atlanta. He may be contacted online at [email protected] .