At the Clothesline

I'll admit it. I like to hang clothes out on a line to dry, and always have. There. I said it. I really do, though. I feel accomplished after I've gathered in a basket, full of warm, sun-dried clothes and linens. 

 Now, don't get me wrong. There is NO ONE who's more thankful than I am, to have a washing machine and dryer. I don't feel a bit left out that I missed the entire wringer washer era. Good heavens, NO! 

I'm quite aware of the pampered generation in which I live. I'm just pleased to have a choice to dry naturally if the opportunity presents itself.


What once was commonplace for nearly every home around to have a clothesline, almost became obsolete when life got busy and people started keeping to themselves. 

They're making a comeback though, with more focus being placed on "going green" these days. Imagine that! I was green before it was in to be green! 

A fellow blogger, Granny Mountain, had this to say about her grandparents' line.


"That line dried their clothes for the 30 years they lived in that house. It was a familiar site when you would pull into the yard to see it loaded down with white sheets, colorful striped terry towels, and patchwork quilts. Grandma's clothesline was like her house, neat and tidy. Shirts would join hands by color, whites then blues. Dresses would line up next to others of like kind, one sleeve attached to the next. Towels, then washcloths. Sheets on one whole line, off by themselves to whip dry in the hot breeze."

And here's Erma Bombeck, giving insight on the subject of clotheslines herself. Read this column published March 4, 1986.

Erma Bombeck
on 
Creeping Privacy Paranoia

Sounds like something out of the spring nursery catalog, doesn't it? Actually it's a name I made up for a trend that has already hit the cities and may eventually invade the countryside. It's a concentrated effort to seek privacy from the rest of the world. I'm not sure when it started, but the front porch was one of its first victims. Remember front porches? They had a swing that squeaked and metal chairs that rusted and always needed painting. Everybody in the neighborhood used to sit out there after dinner and sometimes they talked back and forth to one another. Nothing important. The weather. How the grass would have to be cut before the weekend. How the next one up could get the lemonade. And then the front yards got smaller and smaller and the front porch was phased out to a pot of dead flowers and a doorbell you couldn't hear in the back yard. The back yard became Disneyland with a barbecue, jungle gym, patio, lounges, sandbox and vegetable garden.

It was only a matter of time before the clothesline marred the scene and had to go. And with it went a part of Americana that will never have such an impact on American families. The clothesline was a meeting place of women. They caught up on the events of the day, shared, dumped on one another and clung together. The clothesline was the original newspaper of the community. By reading the clothes you could tell who was toilet trained , who was not, who came home on leave, who had guests, who got something new, who cleaned house, who did not, who had sick children, who was out of work, who was going on vacation, who was entertaining, and who'd overslept.

There didn't seem to be anything from neighbors they needed anymore. Large freezers held a storehouse of food supplies that you might have "borrowed" in earlier times. Unlisted phone numbers protected you from bothersome calls, and when you went outside to cut the grass or take a walk, there were headphones to isolate you from "hellos."

Creeping Privacy Paranoia got a toehold in society when we no longer needed humans to run our elevators, get our groceries, take us to a fitting room or assist us with withdrawals at the bank. I'm as much a carrier of Creeping Privacy Paranoia as anyone else. I've traded communication for bumper stickers, sociability for technology and accessibility for "Wheel of Fortune." What brought all this on was the other Sunday I was walking through the neighborhood and realized behind every wall were lounge chairs with no one lounging in them, barbecue grills with nothing cooking on them and locks on gates where no one wanted in.

I used to talk to myself. I don't even do that anymore. Maybe we're becoming too private ~ EB

Well, we'll talk later. Laundry awaits...