Clotheslines

I adore my clothesline -- even if it currently only consists of a couple of portable ones I lug out the back.  I have always had a clothesline.  The way clothes smell when they dry on a line is incomparable.  To sink into crisp, white, cotton sheets that have dried on the line, to bury your head in a sharply-ironed pillow case that has waved freely in the backyard breeze, or to dry yourself after a shower with a towel rough and irregular from vigorous and determined flapping is to experience a little bit of heaven.  And there is something innocent, charming and enchanting about clothespins -- especially the captivating wooden variety of yesteryear.   

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Mondays, when I would help my mother with the wash -- operating the deadly ringer machine from a very young age, filling the huge aluminum rinsing tubs and then clambering up onto a chair to help her hang it out.  She taught me how to slam the ringer release bar, should my little hand ever become squished between the menacing rollers.  Can you imagine letting a four-year-old operate a lethal machine such as that today?  I was barely out of toddler-hood.  That was my mother, she taught us responsibility at a very early age (like making your bed at two), but combined it with caution.  Years later, when we started going to the cottage in Point Comfort, the only washing machine the "madames" used in the clubhouse was a lone ringer one.  Cottagers were allowed to use it on weekends and guess who never had to compete for laundry time!?  I loved it all, still do.

I also love ironing and iron pillow cases without fail.  I don't go quite as far as my mother, who ironed sheets, but far enough.  In fact, right now I am trying to get through a mountain of ironing that has accumulated thanks to my bad shoulder, that annoying and exasperating body part that won't permit me to do the front crawl either.  So, I am trying to iron with my left hand -- a grim and problematic chore.

Well, back outside to my laundry lines.  By the way, how dumb is it that the condo development where we live will not allow clotheslines.  With everyone re-cycling like mad and our illustrious burghers and city fathers ordering residents to use 15 different kinds of refuse bins, you would think backyard lines would be encouraged -- maybe even made mandatory -- as are the bins.  But no, sorry folks, can't put up a line.  Thankfully, I have my drying racks; the wondrous green grass, breeze and sunshine aroma is the same.