Of clotheslines

I was reading a news story yesterday about people complaining that they cannot have clotheslines in their yard. And my first thought was, you're an idiot!! Who would want a clothesline if you have a perfectly good dryer in your house! At second thought, there are times that a little itty-bitty clothesline would be nice to have. To freshen up linens on a sunkissed line. To hang those articles of clothing that are too delicate to be thrown in the dryer. But, I would not want to do it daily or even weekly.....been there, done that, bought the t-shirt!

When I was a kid it was part of my chores to hang clothes out on the clothesline for my mother. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of doing this, you carry out a 50-lb basket of wet clothes, the clothespins are in their little bag that hangs loosely on the line so you can push it along as you go. If you have four clotheslines, which were very common, you start in the center with your panties and shorts and hang the heavy stuff on the outside.

There was no music, no iPods, no stereos blaring in the background, just you and your wet clothing. Nature at its best. Bend, stretch, shake and flail the jeans around to get out as many wrinkles as you can, then hang them up hoping to place the clothespins just right so they don't fall in the dirt. And, pray it doesn't start to rain. After a couple trips out to see what is dry, you take it down, fold it neatly and place it in your basket. Take it back into the house and put it away.

Sounds great, doesn't it. Why pay to go to the gym, this is an all around exercise all by itself! Of course, your neighbors and everyone that drives by knows what type of panties you wear, those grandmotherly white ones, and that Jockey is the brand preferred by the men in your house.

Of course, you have to be laundry proud. Our whites were white!! No dull, yellowish finish for us. The colors may have been a bit faded, but they were definitely squeaky clean thanks to the old wringer washer. (That is a story in itself!)

BUT, try this in Indiana in the middle of winter with a family of 7. Clothes still got hung out, and they froze!! Then you'd bring them back in and hang them in the utility room until they dried. Your hands would be cracked and bleeding and have no feeling at all after a while.

I can tell you that you better have worn that pair of jeans until they were dirty!! No trying something on, leaving it on the floor, and waiting until they'd been washed and dried before putting them on again. And when you got home from school, your clothes were taken off and hung back up....put on your sweats. Everything was sniff-checked. If it didn't smell and if it wasn't stained, back into the closet it went!!

Let's not even talk about the pile of ironing that would need to be done!

Playtime

I hear that today's kids need more playtime and I agree. Too many of our kids have schedules tighter than most businesses and rarely get outside unless it is an organized sport. We need to shut off the tv, computer, iPod, and send the little rugrats out to play. Fresh air and games like kick the can, red rover red rover, red light - green light.

When I was a kid, we had a radio. But no one listened to it except my mother and usually when we were not home. We used to go outside to play after dinner until it was time to get ready for bed. There was no way we'd stay in the house unless we were in trouble. Besides, to stay in the house meant you'd probably get in trouble for being too noisy. On the weekends we could usually get enough kids to play baseball in the field across the street. Average families back then were 4.7 kids.

If we got too hot or sweating, we'd plop down on the ground and just talk. Kids just being kids. We didn't worry about perverts or murderers or other scary stuff. It happened, we just didn't hear about it - parents would whisper to other parents and everyone would keep an eye out, but we were not paranoid. While our parents were in the house glad that we were all outside, today the parents need to put their lives on hold and go outside and sit and watch the kids be kids.

Gulf fritillary butterflies are swarming all over the place. The bushes look alive!!