The Laundry Line

When I was growing up in Southern California in the 1960's and '70s, energy conservation, sustainable living, and recycling as an everyday part of life were things we talked about in school but hadn't the slightest idea how to put into practice.  The "eco revolution" hadn't happened yet.  Sure, there were a few people who talked about "living off the grid" and "getting back to the land," but they were considered to be radicals, hippies, or people who were just too poor to own common, modern appliances like washers and dryers.  As a child, most people I knew looked down on folks who dried their laundry on a line outside.  Thankfully, all that has changed.  

I've always been charmed by laundry flapping on a line - all the colors and shapes flying like so many flags in the warm breeze.  There is something innately comforting about it that I can't quite define.  It also seems to me to be a kind of secret window into the home and its occupants.  Diapers on a line where no diapers had been before?  Aha!  A new baby has joined the family!  In rural areas, it's also a wonderful way to admire quilts, since these are often dried outside in the spring and summer.    

When I moved to Wisconsin I discovered that I really enjoyed the process of hanging out laundry.  I like the heft of the wicker basket of damp fabric on my hip.  I enjoy the spongy softness of the grass underfoot and the contrast of the colors of the laundry against the grass and trees. I like the feel of the wooden clothespins in my hands.  I prefer the wooden ones without spring clamps.  I have found that the old fashioned ones hold just as well, if not better, than the "modern" clothespins with springs.  You can find these springless, wooden clothespins at antique shops, hobby and craft stores, catalogs like Lehman's, and rural hardware stores. I use the squared ones for heavier items and the round ones for lighter, smaller things.   They will even hold delicate items like vintage hankies without damaging them.  I keep the pins in an old feed sack that hangs handily on the clothesline just in reach and can be moved around as I add or remove items from the line.

In the winter, it's usually too cold and damp to put the laundry out on the line, and we revert to using the dryer, which has little appeal for me, but when spring arrives, I can put the laundry out again.  It's common in my town for many folks to line dry at least some of their laundry, and a clothesline is considered a basic necessity rather than an eyesore.  When one of my neighbors put an addition on her home, her clothesline had to be removed temporarily.  We offered her the use of our line until hers could be put back up a few months later.  

The backyard clothesline is also a convenient meeting place for neighbors.  If I am hanging out clothes at the same time as my neighbor, we will usually stop for a minute to exchange news.  It's a pleasant way to keep in touch. 

We've never had a theft from our laundry line, nor do I know of anyone else in town who has.  I do, however, remember the line in the 1994 film "Little Women" when the March girls are working on their "newspaper" in the attic:

"Advertisements. One periwinkle sash belonging to Mr. N. Winkle has been abscondated from the wash line... which gentleman desires any reports leading to its recovery."

What Mr. Winkle was doing with a periwinkle blue sash on the clothesline is anybody's guess, but perhaps he should have kept a better eye on it.