Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Several years ago, in Idaho on business with a few hours of free time, my traveling companions and I headed east and came across the Old Idaho State Penitentiary, just outside of Boise. Mary, Sue and I walked the grounds, listening to the docent talk about the history of the prison. Originally built as a territorial prison in 1870, over 13,000 convicts passed through its walls. The living conditions were sub-standard and led to a number of riots by prisoners, the last resulting in damages that lead to its closure on December 3, 1973.

Eventually I started wandering, as I tend to do. I discovered a rose garden, the solitary confinement area (know as Siberia), and then found myself in the prison laundry, face to face with an industrial-sized wringer.

Like many others, my paternal grandmother did other people's laundry, and she had a wringer in the basement. I remember watching her pass a tablecloth through the rollers, pressing it flat after which she carefully folded it and placed in in the basket with other laundry.

I had grown up thinking the wringer was called a mango. While the mango may be one of the most cultivated fruits of the tropical world, it was not a common sight at my house. I had never seen one before, so I had no reason to wonder why a fleshy stone fruit and a clothes press had the same name. When my childhood friends, who occasionally ventured into the basement with me would ask, I would confidently tell them, "That's a mango."

In the prison laundry, I stood, mouth agape. Holy crap, I thought, it was a huge mango! I had never seen one outside of my grandmother's basement. It was enormous. I gazed upon the pictures which hung on the wall showing prisoners using the laundry equipment, at the various pieces of machinery and, as my eyes moved up, to a sign that read "No Loafing, No Sitting on Mangle tables".

Mangle, not mango.

The the UK, it is called a mangle. More commonly known as a wringer here on our side of the pond, it is typically two rollers in a frame and was originally designed to wring water from wet laundry. Mangles are more commonly used to press or flatten sheets, tablecloths, clothing, etc. Mangles are an essential feature of commercial laundries. They are used to press flat items such as sheets or tablecloths, and happen to be faster at removing the majority of water when compared to a clothes dryer. Prisons were, or perhaps are, no exception.

While small domestic pressing mangles are typically not sold in North American home appliance stores or departments, although, as with many things, if you look hard enough you can find them. The Miele Rotary Iron is available for around two grand from Wiliams-Sonoma. And I apparently had missed the 1995 movie The Mangler, which was based on a short story by Stephen King about a large industrial mangle possessed by a demon which, to satisfy its blood lust, claims the lives of many victims.

Lesson learned: mangoes may be mangled, but mangles may not be mangoed.