I have a clothesline. And that is fairly rare in this modern world of electronic labor-saving devices. In the house where I rent a room, there is a very good clothes washer and equally fine dryer, but when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, I find hanging out a load of wash one of those simple pleasures of life.
The action of a dryer is violent enough that lint traps are filled with fiber from costly garments and articles; one is literally beating the value out of one’s clothes by using a dryer when good ol’ Mother Nature can do the job. And the task of hanging clothes is for me one of the simple pleasures of life, but don’t ask me why. It could be just plain old nostalgia for the simpler times of the past.
In my time as a youth in Greenfield, my family lived in five houses from 1950 to 1972 and it was only in the last one do I remember there being no clothesline. I was too young to remember the house on Walnut west of main street (actually El Camino Real) but do recall the landlady’s name was “Old Lady Courtney,” and while I do remember some parts of living in one of “Old Man Pura’s” houses on the corner of Apple Avenue and 10th Street (long since torn down, the lot still empty) I don’t recall a clothesline. But when we moved to Fifth Street we lived in two houses, the first for only a few months and the second, only two doors north of the first, for seven years, and I can distinctly remember backyard clotheslines at both places.
They were both made of T-shaped wooden posts with four lines stretched between them; a fairly common design. I don’t recall if the load bearing lines were cloth or metal, but the clothes pins were of the same design as those I use today; that is two-piece, spring connected wooden ones. These pins took the place of the old single pins, which were round and used a V-shape to secure items to the line. That description is wanting and without an image I doubt anyone who has never seen one of those antique pins will get much of an idea what they looked like.
There was an incident I remember only bits and pieces of, that took place in probably late 1956 or maybe early ’57 where my mother was explaining to a policeman how it came to be that our dog, Dixie, was accused of biting, or at least trying to bite, one of the neighborhood boys. The dog, who was tethered to a steel cable running along the ground between the clothesline end posts providing more room to range while outside, had apparently took a nip at Donny from up the street while he was riding his bike. The whole thing blew over when the officer was informed my mother was at the kitchen window and saw Donny try to kick the dog when he rode by and of course the dog reacted.
The reason that ended the incident was because most everybody knew that was something Donny would do just because he was Donny. And that reveals how long ago this was because the reason Donny was on a bike in our backyard was because that particular house, prior to the rerouting of the 101 through Greenfield, had no front or back fences, only side fences, and so Donny, in order to access the alley leading to his house, took that route. It was a simpler time.
I always enjoyed hanging the wash in Corona in Riverside County because that house had a three-ring, circular clothesline, which one loaded by standing in one place and circumvolve the whole device. On a typical summer day, I would hang the large bed sheets on the outer ring then move to the second ring for smaller items. Usually by the time I had the smaller items pinned, given the 100-plus degree heat and breezes, the sheets would already be dry. I suppose I will continue to use sun and wind to dry my laundry loads whenever possible. It is one of those simple things in life that gives one time to meditate on whatever life may bring that day, and it saves the ears and nerves the sounds of mechanical drying.
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So, how goes the war, you ask? And even if you didn’t, there is this little sideshow associated with that whole mess. While Iran remains in the public eye, the United States has shipped 100,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil resulting in $8 billion, which has been put into a U.S. controlled account in Qatar. I researched five different news sources and none can agree where the money is spent but all agree there is little transparency and no congressional oversight with this account. This is typical of authoritarian rule: never let the public know too much. Basically, it is a slush fund for Mr. Trump and his oligarchy friends to use as they see fit.
Also, the record shows how many times this administration has touted that an agreement between Iran and U.S./Israeli governments is near and then backed away citing a plethora of reasons, the count is now around 27 times. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics reports, via financial disclosure forms, Mr. Trump disclosed at least $220 million in financial transactions in securities resulting in a cumulative value of $220 million to $750 million. Government documents show that Trump’s wealth has increased 165% in 18 months. How? Manipulate the market through political shenanigans and get rich all the while telling people you don’t take a wage while in the Oval Office.
And this too is one of the simple pleasures in life; at least for grifters like our current leader and the puppeteer billionaires who manipulate his strings.
Take care. Peace.
Steve Wilson, columnist for King City and Greenfield, may be reached at sc**********@***oo.com.
