It was the one time where you didn’t hide your unmentionables.
As a child, I don’t know how many times we visited somebody else’s home and they had their clothes hanging out on the line. I mainly remember seeing bedsheets and underwear flapping in the wind.
I thought it was odd that nobody seemed to mind seeing that, but you let a bra strap or slip show out in public, especially church, and it was a horrible shame. I guess the polite thing you were expected to do was turn your head away from the clothes that were displayed in all their glory. Not me. I thought it was funny seeing their wash displayed like that. I just didn’t say anything.
There was and is one truly great thing about clothes being hung out to dry: their smell. As my husband Tim likes to say, “They smell like sunshine.” I have read that the smell comes from Ozone, as in the Ozone layer. Anyway, it truly is such a pleasant and soothing aroma. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a spray or candle that has the exact same scent for me.
We had two clothes lines on the farm: my mom’s and my mamaw’s. Mamaw’s clothes line was hung between two tall metal poles. But Mom’s was hung between two wooden posts that were in the shape of a cross. I always thought that was cool.
Of course, I helped both of them hang clothes as well as take them down. As for mamaw, she hung them up any old way, and when she took them down, she just tossed them in the basket and didn’t fold them until she got inside.
My mom was a different story. She was very particular about both. Maybe efficient would be a better term. She knew how to get the most clothes on the line and them all completely dry. And when she took them down, she neatly folded them before they went in the basket. She even paired the socks.
For the record, folding is one of my mom’s talent that I wish I had. Let me tell you, everything she folds is crisp and neat. The only thing that I can decently fold is a letter, and that is because I took Typing my sophomore year. Keyboarding didn’t exist them.
“And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.” John 20:7 (KJV)
To mamaw, laundry was something she did just to get done. As for my mother, she neatly folded her laundry because it was important to her. That is why the napkin that wrapped Jesus’ head wasn’t just cast side at His resurrection. His saving us from our sins was something Jesus took great care with down to every last detail.
Yes, you are that important to him. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.
One day I decided I wanted our clothes to smell like sunshine again, so Tim and I bought a clothes line and sat in the back yard. It was perfect. The clothes line that was round with a top that spun around on the pole. The part above ground could be taken out of the shaft when Tim mowed. Best of all, I could walk a few feet from the back door to the line.
It worked well until Tim bought a little building in which to do his taxidermy. He had it placed a few feet from the back door. That was in the winter. The first warm spring day, I packed my wet towels into my clothes basket. Next, I picked up the top part of the clothes line and politely marched outside, but I couldn’t find the bottom shaft anywhere. To my disappointment I realized Tim had sat his building on top of my clothes line shaft. So, don’t come to my house if you want to smell any sunshine.