Clotheslines

Today, I came across an article about how residents in many areas are prohibited from using outdoor clotheslines. Sometimes they're prohibited by housing associations and sometimes by hostile neighborhood opinion, but the lines are always forbidden because of "aesthetics": neighbors think that the lines look "trashy" (read: they make the neighborhood look poor).

It seems incredible to me that people could be against clotheslines. Sure, if your neighbor has a clothesline, you have to look at his t-shirts and pajama pants, but I think it's kind of homey to see neighbors' clothing; it reminds me that other people live on my street, whether I see them in person or not!  Besides, using a clothesline lets the sun dry your clothes for free, reducing your electric bills and your carbon footprint. Saving money, helping the environment, a more colorful neighborhood--what's not to love?

I couldn't hang clothes outside during college or grad school. (Usually, even if an apartment complex gives you a tiny patch of land or a deck, you're still not allowed to actually do anything with the space.) But my parents still have a clothesline that I convinced them to install when I was in high school. I'm a big fan of it.

But it wasn't until I read the article that I remembered that we had a line at all. Ours is a retractable model: you pull the line out of its case when you need it, attach the end of the line to a hook screw, and then let the line whip back up into its case when you're all done.

 

I didn't use the line all summer, and when I went out to check on it this afternoon, I realized why: the retractable line was all knotted up inside the plastic case, and the case itself was about to fall off the shed wall. I couldn't yank the line out, so I resorted to "fixing it" (translation: I broke the brittle case off the shed wall, whacked it with a hammer, popped the case in half, dodged the sharp metal spring that whipped past my head, and then reattached the freed line to the shed via an old nail). As you can see, the fix worked quite nicely.  ;)

I started hanging clothes outside for environmental reasons, but I also like the process because it reminds me of Mrs. Gretencord, my second grade teacher. She lived down the street from me when I was growing up. She had four clothes lines in her back yard that ran between two thick metal T-shaped poles.Whenever I walked past her house, I would see her clothes danging in the wind beside her husband's pants and, occasionally, his underpants. Being a seven-year-old, I always giggled to see them, but I also shivered at the thought of pulling on a pair of boxers that had been hanging outside on a windy January day!

Mrs. Gretencord also had a clothesline hung in her busy little classroom at Central Elementary School. She used the clothesline during our reading units. We'd read a book together as a class, and when we were all done, Mrs. Gretencord would hang a copy of the book's cover on the line with a little clothespin. The books would hang in the classroom for the rest of the quarter to remind us what we had accomplished. I remember staring at the covers everyday: Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Chalk Box Kid, and The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Mrs. Gretencord is probably why I love book covers so much.

I count Mrs. Gretencord as one of my favorite teachers; she never stopped encouraging me and caring about me, even when I was all grown up. Even in high school, I still stopped by her house to chat and to tell her how school was going.

She finally retired a few years ago and moved out of her old house, but I hear that she still volunteers at Central Elementary because she misses being around the kids. I bet she still hangs her laundry outside, too, retired or not, and regardless of whether it's July or December.