When I was a kid I can remember my Mom hanging the laundry out to dry on a nice sunny afternoon. She always said the sun made things smell better. I just thought that was what everyone did. Then, the next thing I knew we had an electric dryer delivered to our house and boy we thought we were we something.
After the dryer came, the clothes were never hung out to dry on the clothes line. Sure, we had the drying rack thingamajig for delicate clothes, but never did our unmentionables go back outside. Then it seemed that you weren’t supposed to do that . . . Yards were for patios, pools and fancy landscaping.
Nowadays not only are you not supposed to hang your wears out for all of the neighbors to see, the Home owners associations in our area even state that this is a violation of the covenants. However, yesterday when I was showing houses I could see down in the next door neighbor’s yard a Clothesline. It was full too, with a full load of laundry. It was behind the fence so no one could see anything. It had been so long since I had seen laundry hung out on a clothes line it really stood out to me. It was kind of neat to be reminded of those old days being outside helping Mom.
Since being green is so en vogue this got me to think that maybe we should start hanging our unmentionables out for our neighbor to enjoy again to save energy. When you think about it, the dryer is one the most expensive appliances we run in our households. By considering this new chore we could not only save money, we could help save the planet.
Next we might consider hand washing our clothes again . . . Nah, we don’t want get too crazy with ourselves.