Clotheslines
Today I am grateful for safe travels to and from Iowa, time with family, that my stepdaughter Emily is off to a good start at college, and I am grateful for memories of clotheslines.
I was thinking about clotheslines this weekend when I was at my mom's. She still uses outdoor clotheslines, and had hung a few things out to dry. I sometimes help out with that when I am there. I visited the farm I grew up on this weekend too, and though the clotheslines of my childhood are gone, I can still see the memories.
No fabric softener can beat the authentic fresh smell of clothes and laundry dried in the outdoor air. If you have ever laid down to sleep on sheets dried on the line, you know what I am talking about. With a large family, we were always doing laundry when I was growing up and hung the wash outside almost year-round. I remember frozen clothes being brought in to finish drying on the lines we had in the basement, or in the dryer.
We did laundry on M-W-F and took turns doing sheets from each bedroom throughout the week. You can imagine that many people (I am one of 13 children) and dirty farm work creating a fair amount of laundry. I recall not minding the chore of helping hang out the clothes or helping get them off the line and back to their beds or drawers or closets. I'm sure I balked at times, but to this day I don't mind doing the laundry. I appreciate tasks that have a beginning and an end and laundry fits that bill. There is satisfaction in putting clean clothes and towels away. We don't have outdoor clotheslines at our home, but we do air dry things in the basement.
When I think about laundry, I think about my mom and the hundreds and thousands of loads of laundry she did using a wringer washer. But this is a woman who didn't have running water in the house she grew up in until she was 18. A wringer washer was a step up. And now the automatic is the only one she uses. Mom has always impressed me with her housekeeping. Even with that many children, the house was clean, the floors swept, the dishes washed, and dirty clothes didn't stay dirty for long. She had plenty of help, but it was still impressive. I appreciate that and have tried to maintain a clean house myself in adulthood.
Those clotheslines not only bring memories of laundry, but also memories of games. A clothesline became a "net" for volleyball and badminton. They also became hazards when we would play ball or night games like "hide and seek" or "no bears out tonight." We knew to look out for those clotheslines. It's good to know your surroundings and be cautious of danger. From time to time, someone would get clotheslined, but no serious injuries resulted.
I recently got clotheslined, figuratively speaking. More on that tomorrow.
I was thinking about clotheslines this weekend when I was at my mom's. She still uses outdoor clotheslines, and had hung a few things out to dry. I sometimes help out with that when I am there. I visited the farm I grew up on this weekend too, and though the clotheslines of my childhood are gone, I can still see the memories.
No fabric softener can beat the authentic fresh smell of clothes and laundry dried in the outdoor air. If you have ever laid down to sleep on sheets dried on the line, you know what I am talking about. With a large family, we were always doing laundry when I was growing up and hung the wash outside almost year-round. I remember frozen clothes being brought in to finish drying on the lines we had in the basement, or in the dryer.
We did laundry on M-W-F and took turns doing sheets from each bedroom throughout the week. You can imagine that many people (I am one of 13 children) and dirty farm work creating a fair amount of laundry. I recall not minding the chore of helping hang out the clothes or helping get them off the line and back to their beds or drawers or closets. I'm sure I balked at times, but to this day I don't mind doing the laundry. I appreciate tasks that have a beginning and an end and laundry fits that bill. There is satisfaction in putting clean clothes and towels away. We don't have outdoor clotheslines at our home, but we do air dry things in the basement.
When I think about laundry, I think about my mom and the hundreds and thousands of loads of laundry she did using a wringer washer. But this is a woman who didn't have running water in the house she grew up in until she was 18. A wringer washer was a step up. And now the automatic is the only one she uses. Mom has always impressed me with her housekeeping. Even with that many children, the house was clean, the floors swept, the dishes washed, and dirty clothes didn't stay dirty for long. She had plenty of help, but it was still impressive. I appreciate that and have tried to maintain a clean house myself in adulthood.
Those clotheslines not only bring memories of laundry, but also memories of games. A clothesline became a "net" for volleyball and badminton. They also became hazards when we would play ball or night games like "hide and seek" or "no bears out tonight." We knew to look out for those clotheslines. It's good to know your surroundings and be cautious of danger. From time to time, someone would get clotheslined, but no serious injuries resulted.
I recently got clotheslined, figuratively speaking. More on that tomorrow.
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