Tag Archives: Sunday

reuminating on feminism and old habits

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Earlier this week a friend sent me these basic rules for clotheslines–bringing up memories of a past life–that I’ll bet many of you remember as well. Judging from the tacked on comments and additions, this apparently made the email rounds many times over. I tried a web search in order to find the original so I might provide a source, and it was pretty near impossible. It’s too good not to pass along, and somehow I doubt whoever started it won’t mind too much. I added my own thoughts in parentheses at the end of the lines. Younger readers, or those who grew up in the city apartments, or those whose family was rich enough to hire your laundry done, it’ll be a good chance to glimpse the “good ol’ days.”

THE BASIC RULES FOR CLOTHESLINES:

1. You had to hang the socks by the toes. NOT the top. (They were always hung in pairs to conserve clothespins.)
2. You hung pants (trousers) by the BOTTOM/cuffs. NOT the waistbands. (Years later, Mama bought these “stretcher” frames she placed inside each leg, so that creasing down the leg centers–made by the stretchers–meant she didn’t have to iron them.)
3. You had to WASH the clothesline(s) before hanging any clothes–walk the entire length of each line with a damp cloth wrapped around the lines so you didn’t get smudge marks on the damp items. (That was MY job. There was a long wooden pole with a cut in the top that was used to prop and push the lines up. That way longer items like sheets and pants couldn’t brush the ground and get dirty.)
4. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang “whites” with “whites,” and hang them first. (The “whites” had to be WHITE. That’s how Mama judged the level of housewifely skills of every woman in the countryside, always quick to point out how “dingy” so-and-so’s “whites” were getting.)
5. You NEVER hung a shirt by the shoulders – always by the tail! What would the neighbors think? (Besides, you didn’t want little stretch bumps–caused by the weight–sticking up on the shoulders.)
6. Wash day on a Monday! NEVER hang clothes on the weekend, or on Sunday, for Heaven’s sake! (Iron on Tuesdays, and so on.)
7. Hang the sheets and towels on the OUTSIDE lines so you could hide your “unmentionables” in the middle. (Nobody else needed to know or observe as big hers were or how tiny mine were.)
8. It didn’t matter if it was sub-zero weather… clothes would “freeze-dry.” (Starch had an effect, too. Sometimes a Sunday shirt was so stiff with boiled starch, you could almost hold the sleeve and it would walk into the house by your side!)
9. ALWAYS gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left on the lines were “tacky”! (Plus they would last a lot longer too! We had an assortment of three kinds, all wooden, one with a little spring that made a better grip , and the others, both–one rounded and one flat–a little plainer & cheaper, plus they made great clothespin dolls if you could filch a few.)

(Photos: Wikipedia)   

AND some of you may remember the dhobi-ghats in my post about the Dhobi Ghats in Mumbai where they don’t even use pins (!), and they hang the clothes according to color too.

10. 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.  (AND you made sure the items were taut and not dragging in the center.)
11. Clothes off of the line before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes basket, and ready to be ironed. (They smelled wonderful!)
12. IRONED???!! Well, that’s a whole OTHER subject!

I was thinking on this as I caught up on my own laundry this week, using my automatic machines that not only does my washing but the drying as well. It took me only part of my day and in between I had time to snack and read and sit in the swing. How different life is for women to do their own wash these days.  I’m reminded of a poem by my favorite contemporary poet, Marge Piercey, brought to my attention by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac PBS. Her poem,  The Good Old Days At Home Sweet Home, goes a long way in expressing the sentiment behind her feminist views. In it she speaks of a vivid scene as she was growing up in the ’50s and ’60s just as I did (she’s a few years my elder). In the final four lines of a poem that simply and eloquently describes her mother’s life of drudgery, she writes:

It could have been any day, as she did again and again
What time and dust obliterated at once.
Until stroke broke her open, I think it was Tuesday,
When she ironed my father’s shorts.

I have the same bittersweet memories of laundry days gone by, years and years of example from the lives of my own mothers and grandmothers. Suddenly this morning as I was ironing the towel that likes to hang out at my kitchen stove., yes you read that right, I like my towels to hang neatly, and unfortunately I’d left mine in the dryer too long and it wrinkled so badly, it wouldn’t hang right. So I got out the iron and ironed it so it would lay straight because it has a message I hold dear. Did someone say IRONIC? Don’t mind what I do, just listen to what I say with the things I use:

birds are people too

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18

A long time ago I read somewhere that when baby birds first hack their way out of the shell, the first thing they see they will think is their “mother.” Wikipedia tells me now that in psychology, it’s called “genomic imprinting.”  That’s must be how those photographs of a dog with baby chickens or ducks following behind a dog came to be. When I was a kid, I had a three-legged pet pig that used to drag himself along behind me because I was the one forthcoming with food treats. My mom must have loved having her flowers crushed by a pig dragging his 60 pound (eventually) pot belly through them.

Naturally, when I noticed sometime this weekend that a bird had shat nearly smack-dab near the middle of the picture window, I wondered who in thunder had taught him–or them, as there were TWO big gray and blue spats tinged with white–how to poop sideways! That took some clever bird(s). Sunday morning found me on the front deck with a stepping stool and assorted soft rag teeshirts and a can of window cleaner in hand.  Thinking back over the years, I realize I’ve known quite a few clever birds who were quite entertaining in their own way, but never one that could do that sideways pooping trick.

This is Henry, the parakeet we acquired when we lived in Connecticut. As you can see, Henry had the run of the house most of the time. His cage sat on daughter #1’s dresser with the door propped open, providing a bridge to the carved pink elephant embedded with tiny pink mirrored diamond shapes he liked to use as his toilet. It was continually covered with droppings deposited as he sat jabbering to the parakeet in the mirror who looked exactly like him! He was so excited by his friend in the mirror that he also left slobber markings there. Cleaning tasks were constant, but it was worth it for the entertainment he provided for the whole family. He was quite content to fly around the house to wherever people were gathered. In time, he even taught himself to talk.

Then we moved to Ohio, taking Henry with us, and life began to change for us. The girls were growing up and eventually going to school. One day the older daughter came home with a request. Could she please bring a baby chicken home to live with us because the school year was ending and the chickens hatched in the classroom all needed adoptive homes. How could I–who grew up with mostly animals and chickens as my only friends for the first five years of life because we lived in on a farm in the boonies–say no? So that’s how Birdbrain came to live with us.

Birdbrain was a fast-growing white leghorn hatchling. By the time he came home with us he was at the gangly all-leg phase and losing most of his downy biddy feathers. Suffice it to say he was not his handsome best, and yes, he was a rooster. We set his big cardboard box house on the grate by the fireplace next to Henry’s cage. Now our Ohio house was in a neighborhood in a rural setting and we were susceptible to mice invasions.  So with the danger of possible mice lynchings, Henry was only allowed out of his cage when we were present.

One day we were rather startled when we returned home after an outing to see Henry’s cage door hanging open, with Henry nowhere to be found. We called and called, and when that didn’t work we spread out over the house, down in the basement, on a frantic search. Then somebody decided to check to see if Birdbrain was in his box. He was. And so was Henry. Birdbrain was acting like a chicken acts, scratching and peeping happily in the chicken feed sprinkled on the floor of his box. To our delight, so was Henry. Apparently he’d made a new friend, the best kind, one who could teach him new tricks. We got rather used to seeing Henry visit Birdbrain in his box, and if he wasn’t in his cage that’s where he’d be. One day we decided to let Birdbrain visit Henry. We opened the cage door and carefully set him inside and Henry dropped down to the floor from his perch and joined him scratching on the grit-lined newspaper. Not long after that, there Birdbrain was one day–balancing awkwardly on Henry’s perch, while Henry clung to the cuttlebone on the side. Who says an old bird can’t learn new tricks? True story!

As for the culprits involved in my poop-splattered window, who knows who imprinted them with the ability to do their dirty deeds? I dismiss  them as two teenagers, most likely, out past midnight after they’d snuck outside their bedroom windows, flying about looking for ways to do a little imprinting of their own. They had just happened by our house when they finally perfected their little joke. I must say, the clean window looks smashing, regardless of how it came about.