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Basic Rules for Clotheslines
Our kids missed a lot of fun
You have to be a certain age to appreciate this.

(if you don't know what clotheslines are, better skip this)

1. You had to wash the clothes line before hanging any clothes - walk the entire lengths of each line with a damp cloth around the lines.

2. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang "whites" with "whites," and hang them first.

3. You never hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail!. What would the neighbors think?

4.. Wash day on a Monday! Never hang clothes on the weekend, or Sunday, for Heaven's sake!

5. Hang the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your unmentionables" in the middle (perverts & busybodies, y'know!)

6. It didn't matter if it was sub zero weather ... clothes would freeze-dry."

7. Always gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left on the lines were "tacky!"

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.

9. Clothes off of the line before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes basket, and ready to be ironed.

10. IRONED?! Well, that's a whole other subject!

Does anyone remember the little cloth bag you put the clothespins in?

It had a wire hanger on it so you could glide it down the line ahead of you when you were hanging out the laundry or pull it behind when you took the clothes down.

Good days. I miss 'em!

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

11. Mind the wind. Is New Mexico sand or Oklahoma red dirt blowing in to visit?

Ah yes. And tightening the lines before hanging heavy blankets on them, using the radiator to help along any socks that didn't have enough time to sun dry, and seeing the old man neighbor's black socks hanging neatly next to his whites. LOL

One from my misspent yute in the Northern U.S.: In the winter time, look down when running across the back yard, you don't want to trip over the clothesline.

My mother had one of those carosels, she didn't have to move from one spot to hand the clothes. Wintertime my father rigged up a post arrangement so that she could lean out from the porch and hang the clothes on it. They forgot that the porch roof pitched that direction and one time the snow on the roof came down on her head.

cougartex wrote:Basic Rules for Clotheslines
Our kids missed a lot of fun
You have to be a certain age to appreciate this.

(if you don't know what clotheslines are, better skip this)

1. You had to wash the clothes line before hanging any clothes - walk the entire lengths of each line with a damp cloth around the lines.

2. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang "whites" with "whites," and hang them first.

3. You never hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail!. What would the neighbors think?

4.. Wash day on a Monday! Never hang clothes on the weekend, or Sunday, for Heaven's sake!

5. Hang the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your unmentionables" in the middle (perverts & busybodies, y'know!)

6. It didn't matter if it was sub zero weather ... clothes would freeze-dry."

7. Always gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left on the lines were "tacky!"

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.

9. Clothes off of the line before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes basket, and ready to be ironed.

10. IRONED?! Well, that's a whole other subject!

Don't forget the neat little sheet metal device with a wheel in the middle at each end and an opening in one side to slip the lines in to keep the lower line from sagging to the ground when hanging heavy stuff.

jimlongley wrote:My mother had one of those carosels, she didn't have to move from one spot to hand the clothes. Wintertime my father rigged up a post arrangement so that she could lean out from the porch and hang the clothes on it. They forgot that the porch roof pitched that direction and one time the snow on the roof came down on her head.

That sounds like an early version of the target retrieval system in indoor ranges.

We had the "retractable" kind that bolted to the side of the house. We could pull out a bar with 5 "lines" on it and hook it on a post that was driven in the ground about 10 yards away. Take it off the post and it retracted back into the unit that was bolted to the wall. Pretty high-tech for my family. I remember the day we bought it with S&H Green stamps. Mom was so proud. Me, on the other hand, not so proud when my friends would come in wearing my sister's "Whites".

You know the young folks among us are scratching their heads and wondering what in the world we're talking about?

Chas.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:You know the young folks among us are scratching their heads and wondering what in the world we're talking about?

Chas.

Sorta like the high school senior age girl I saw in a medical office about a year ago. The receptionist was using an IBM Selectric typewriter (the one with the print head on an interchangeable ball.) I guess the doc she worked for was into antiques.

The young lady pointed to it and asked, "What's that?" She'd never seen one before. (I hadn't seen one in about the last ten years before then either, but I sure typed a lot of stuff on them before that.)

One thing I learned early in life was that a sure-fire way to irritate my mom was to hang from the clothesline, which made the lines sag. That made her unhappy... ...which invariably wound up with my being the recipient of a proper application of "motivation" to my hind parts.

Pawpaw wrote:Does anyone remember the little cloth bag you put the clothespins in?

It had a wire hanger on it so you could glide it down the line ahead of you when you were hanging out the laundry or pull it behind when you took the clothes down.

Good days. I miss 'em!

My Gandma had one of those I remember, she would hang it on the line, hang an item, push it down the line and hang another.

Just brought a memory back from many many years ago. Life sure seemed a lot less complicated back then or maybe it was because I was just a kid...
Jim