The promise of freedom from the drudgery of laundry is as sweet today as it was in 1910 [a hundred years ago!]. While there's no question that modern appliances out perform their ancestors, I have to say that their styling—super-charged colors in metallic flake, odd-shaped porthole windows—seems so garish when compared to that of the Blue Bird washer. Its bombe-like contours and snow-white-enameled housing are elegant, albeit in a slightly clunky sort of way.Happy and peaceful holidays to you all, dear readers.