IF YOU HAVE A SOLDIER DOWN RANGE, YOU MIGHT DO THEM A FAVOR AND SEND THEM A WASHBOARD.

In the dirt and grime of the Iraqi desert, Army Reserve Lt. Dominick Filipponi and the men in the transportation unit he commands can sometimes go for a week without a change of clothes and a shower.
So when the 29-year-old soldier had a chance to ask his parents for a favor, it seemed a simple enough request: send a washboard to help the unit do its laundry.

But in a world of automatic washers and dryers, washboards have been relegated to the world of kitschy country decor and the occasional washboard band.

Joan Filipponi and her husband, also named Dominick, searched online stores and auctions from their Pasco County home. They also called department stores and hardware stores and couldn’t find a single one of the galvanized steel boards of days gone by.

It took a call to Cracker Barrel, the roadside restaurant which bills itself as the “little old country store” to resolve the dirty laundry dilemma. Years ago, Cracker Barrels across the country sold washboards in their gift shops, but the boards had long ago been relegated to the clearance bin.

The company searched its 477 stores, finding five boards, which — along with three washtubs and an assortment of games — were sent to Iraq in a care package from the Cracker Barrel restaurant northeast of Tampa, for the lieutenant and his troops...

As it turns out, the old-fashioned house ware has become a hot commodity in the desert. The Columbus Washboard Company, the Ohio factory that is the last remaining manufacturer of washboards in the U.S., has sent nearly 1,500 to the troops.

The boards are accompanied by boxes of laundry soap, clothes pins, clothes lines and small tubs. The company specially designed some boards to read “Proud to be an American.”

“They are thrilled,” said Jacqui Barnett, the company’s co-owner. “We are getting more requests.”

You can find The Columbus Washboard Company at www.columbuswashboard.com/index.html