Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507180068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PORT REPUBLIC LENGTH: Medium
Aline Poythress made breakfast, fed the chickens and took a break from her canning and cleaning Monday to read the fan mail that's been coming in since her successful domestic demonstration.
Poythress carried a straight-back wooden chair to her front lawn one day last week, sat down, read a book of short stories she'd been wanting to read for some time and held a big sign that said, ``Farm Wife On Strike.''
``I'm sick and tired of having to pick up,'' the 53-year-old woman explained from her roadside outpost. ``If it takes a week, if it takes a month, I'm going to sit out here.''
The domestic labor dispute began after Poythress came home from a visit to her mother in Ohio and found one of the geese dead and the place a mess.
She had to process 12 gallons of broccoli, and asked her husband, Jim, and their 16-year-old son, David, to sweep and mop the floor. ``They said, `Later, we'll do it later,' which means never.''
So she drew up a contract detailing household and family responsibilities.
``They thought it was a joke,'' Poythress said.
So she decided to embarrass her family into signing the contract by picketing. ``I came of age in the 1960s, so I knew a little bit about civil protest.'' Until the contract was signed, she would not cook, clean or do laundry.
But the males in the family wouldn't budge. ``I figured they would come out, but I underestimated both of them.''
Meanwhile, she received shouts of encouragement all day from passing motorists. Some women drove back to give her a jug of cold water, sandwiches, an umbrella hat, more signs and T-shirt with empowering messages.
When she finally walked inside that evening, ``My husband said, `Hon, we've got to sit down and talk this over.''' Their son had made dinner for the three of them - ``campfire stew.''
After eating, they signed the contract.
Jim, 57, takes care of the cattle and runs the farm implement repair business.
David takes care of the sheep and the cow he hopes will win a ribbon at the county fair, cleans the upstairs bathroom and helps with the laundry. Both will pick up after themselves.
At the family conference, which they agreed to begin holding once a month and let each other talk without interruption, ``my husband came up with eight things that bother him and that have been bothering him for more than a year.''
She agreed to vary the breakfast menu and end her protest. David agreed to stop interrupting Jim when he's working on a tractor or talking to a customer. The parents agreed to cut David some slack on the chores every once in a while.
Over the weekend, as a peace gesture, the men cleaned the house.
In the meantime, she said all of the outside responses were positive except for the message directed to her husband that was left on the answering machine Friday by a man she judged to be in his 50s.
``You are obviously old enough to do the cooking by yourself and the cleaning by yourself,'' Aline Poythress mimicked with a masculine voice. ``If I were you, I'd pack up her suitcases, set them out beside her and let her go her own way.''
A woman from clear across Rockingham County sent a picture of her husband and a friend's husband washing and drying dishes at the kitchen sink. The note on the back of the snapshot said, ``It can be done.''
A 7-year-old girl mailed a drawing of dinosaurs with the note, ``They can be mean and green but keep it up and they will help.''
A women's aid center in Page County sent her a poster with a batch of signatures. ``You are a shining example of homemakers across America that have been taken for granted,'' the message read. ``Go sister, go!''
by CNB