Clothesline Rules

[chasfm11]

OK, memory lane, here I come.

We had those "T" clothes line supports in my parent's last house. We had the poles with the notch in them you ran up under the line in the middle when you put heavy things on the line. It wasn't unusual to have two poles in the same run with blankets. We tried all kinds of line, plastic covered wire (later) and cotton rope and all of them had to be replaced more often than you might expect.

Funny story. When we first moved to Texas, we were in a Colleyville development. We were one of the first ones in our section and put up a carousel type clothes line in the back year. I read the CC&Rs and there was nothing in the close to prohibiting it. We had a very sloped lot and high fences so the only ones that could see it were two of the immediate neighbors. About 5 years after we moved there, the HOA started to get active because they elected a bunch of busybodies to the board. One day, we got a violations notice for the clothes pole - unsigned by the HOA. I sent back a registered letter to the HOA board, asking them to identify the page and paragraph that the clothes pole was violating. I never heard another word. We kept it until we sold that house and moved to our current one 7 years ago.

I still miss crawling into a bed with sheets that were dried on an outdoor clothes line. That is a great smell!

[ELB]

Gosh, I cannot remember the last time I saw a wooden clothes pin. We had both the ones with the wire spring, and the older style that was just a long notch cut lengthwise. Hadn't thought about that in years.

When I was a kid, in the mid 60s, my granddad died (had outlived my grand mother), and mom brought home some feather pillows with the blue striped cloth. (Was it called "ticking?") One night when I went to bed, I was punching up the pillow and felt something hard inside. It felt for all the world like a clothes pin, the older type. I asked mom about it, and she said that when my grandmother made the pillows by hand, she used clothes pins to seal the end while she sewed it shut, and most likely one of them had fallen inside without her noticing.

Don't know what happened to that pillow, wish I still had it.

[RPB]

8. If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item did not need two clothes pins, but shared one of the clothes pins with the next washed item.

Once I left home and had to do my own laundry, that's the first thing I learned :)

I didn't have a lot of money and so washed my clothes in the bath - and it was luxury indeed once I saved enough to buy one of those l'il hand-cranked washer things:

Reminds me of what a friend in college did to save money.
He said the laundrymat charged 50 cents to wash clothes, but the apartment had a dishwasher he could use free. The dishes came out clean, hard and shiny, and so did his shorts.

[Divided Attention]

Make sure goats, cows etc can't reach lines ... they love them some linens! No better nights sleep than on sun dried sheets!

BTW I still have one of those incredibly ugly clothespin holders! It is invaluable!

[O6nop]

I remember the clotheslines alright, but as kids we used them as huge slingshots and the clothespins as projectiles to see who could launch them the furthest.

We were one of the last in the neighborhood to get an automatic dryer (gas), I remember we got one with a UV bulb in it to give it the 'sun-kissed' affect.

[WildBill]

The smell of line dried clothes is amazing too.

You read a lot about "green" activities, but you never see clotheslines mentioned as an alternative.

Too many deed restrictions and HOAs.

Anygun

That's a great thought. Gas and electric dryers are probably one of the most inefficient uses of energy in most American homes. I wonder how one of those "green" HOA committee weenies would answer a question about those deed restrictions.

[WildBill]

I didn't have a lot of money and so washed my clothes in the bath - and it was luxury indeed once I saved enough to buy one of those l'il hand-cranked washer things:

And when you weren't washing clothes with it you could always make ice cream.

[jimlongley]

I started with NY Telephone Company in late 1966, and one of my first jobs was going down through backyards putting UP clotheslines. The company had removed the aerial cables down behind these blocks and the gone through and torn down all the cable and wires, and poles, and the crossarms that EVERYBODY had attached their clotheslines to. The neighborhood raised so much caine about it that the company decided to put up new poles and crossarms.

[lonewolf]

We also used the clothespins to keep chip bags closed so they would stay fresher longer. Now someone went and "invented" the Chip Clip and made a mint....

Not to mention the fact that a clothespin was a necessity on many rubber band guns......

[TexasGal]

yeppers.. I remember them days...

and to sweeten the memory pot, I have 3 pair of pants stretchers that I rescued from my grand parent's house..

these are expanding metal frames that slide down into the pants legs of levis and pants to allow them to dry with a seam. Makes them appear to have been ironed, but in reality, just dry formed..

Yeah, we had those and when you took them out of the jeans, those stiff denim jeans would stand up by themselves I can remember trying to walk those first few steps in them.
I watched my mother put out many a load of wash on those lines. With four kids, she washed, cleaned, cooked, or worried over a sick kid just about round the clock. She was the first one up and the last one to bed. Old farm houses and clothes lines always make me feel a twinge for the simple days of innocence and childhood and my mom's sweet face smiling at me each night as I was tucked into bed.....gotta stop now, starting to be hard to see the dang screen.

[chasfm11]

The smell of line dried clothes is amazing too.

You read a lot about "green" activities, but you never see clotheslines mentioned as an alternative.

Too many deed restrictions and HOAs.

Anygun

That's a great thought. Gas and electric dryers are probably one of the most inefficient uses of energy in most American homes. I wonder how one of those "green" HOA committee weenies would answer a question about those deed restrictions.

They would probably do what most of them seem to always do and dodge the question. Somehow, inconsistencies in their philosophy are not the fodder for discussion.

[Abraham]

The effort to air dry clothes is something I remember vividly with absolutely no sense of nostalgia.

In it's own right doing so is tedious and rather hard work from start to finish.

Ask me how I know.

Thanks the gods of technology for clothes dryers - be they gas or electric!

Of course, I remember our "Out House" with a great sense of nostalgia, ah wait, no I don't...

Technology rules!!

[Bullwhip]

http://www.lehmans.com/store/Home_Goods ... OUNTRYLIFE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[cbunt1]

Of course, I remember our "Out House" with a great sense of nostalgia, ah wait, no I don't...

Technology rules!!

Or an "air" of something!

I hadn't thought of clotheslines in a long time. My Grandma & Granddad never had an electric dryer. We (me and my cousins) were some of the lucky ones--because the clotheslines were setup on steel posts and sunk into the ground, we never got in trouble for hanging on the posts.

Now the lines....well, that's another story! LOL