CLOTHESLINES NO LONGER IN THE SHADOWS

 Image: http://www.wikihow.com/Dry-Clothes-Outside

I've been surprised to learn clotheslines have been in the shadows, actually outlawed in this country for some time by  organizations called HOAs (Homeowners Associations). HOAs monitor what changes homeowners can make to their property in some communities and what rules they must obey regarding home renovation, appearance and upkeep. Such organizations, for example often have veto powers regarding homeowner's choice of exterior house paint colors.

Well, the modest but nostalgic everyday backyard fixture of homekeepers throughout this country for generations, that is, the humble clothesline, has not only been under attack by HOAs. They have  made it an object of homeowner shame. Shame that our laundry drying on a line in the backyard is unsightly and lowers property values.

Recently more liberal HOAs have deigned to allow a clothesline, but only if it is completely out of sight of any of one's neighbors or passersby. It is only recently that clotheslines have achieved somewhat of a comeback, and a respectful one at that, thanks to solar energy lawmakers. You can read all about it here:

http://daily.sightline.org/2012/02/21/clothesline-bans-void-in-19-states/

http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-laundry-line.html

http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/dynoGall2.asp?catID=269

All this clothesline information pried loose a childhood memory of mine:

There were six kids in my family and I was the oldest. I dutifully learned a lot about how to do laundry. I remember hanging laundry on the clothesline when I was 7 years old. I was fairly tall for my age, but sometimes I would have to jump and grab the clothes line and bend it down toward me so that I could hang larger items like sheets. I used to manage to fold the sheets in half and hang them, corners met and clipped with four clothespins per sheet onto the line. That was in California.

I had two grandmothers still alive then. I loved one but didn’t like the other as much. Both grandmothers lived within blocks of us. I saw them both frequently. The one I didn’t like told me not to hang undies on the clothesline because the neighbors would see them. She must have considered herself some kind of moral compass.

I remember the wonderful smell of sunshine that the clothes had when I took them off the line and brought them into the house to fold and put away. The wooden clothespins and the clothespin bag with two pockets on a wooden clothes hanger are a part of yesteryear.

Later when we left California and moved north there were more babies. I recall hanging clothes in the winter in the back porch of the old rental house we lived in where the clothesline was strung for winter laundry. This was before my parents had a dryer. They still had an old electric wringer washer tub.

In the icy winters my baby sister's cloth diapers would freeze on the line in that old back porch. I’d take the frozen stiff diapers off the line, stack them and bring them into the kitchen and dry them on the gas heater which provided the main heat in the kitchen. I was about ten years old by then. I first heard Elvis Presley on the radio one of those late laundry afternoons after school. Never liked Presley’s singing much, but I do remember having a pile of frozen diapers in my arms and dropping them on top of the enameled gas heater. They sizzled steam while I listened, a bit stunned at hearing “Heartbreak Hotel” for the first time.

Do you have a clothesline story?