On the Line

One of my all time favorite smells is clean laundry and, as far as I'm concerned, nothing can beat the smell, or feel of laundry that has dried on the line in the summer sun. The sheets and towels flapping in the breeze, running through a yard with them still damp and catching you on your sun warmed face. The unbelievable softness of undergarments blown dry by the wind; ah, the joy of it all. Whole marketing plans have been based on this very thing. And I got to live it. My whole growing up life my mother had a washing machine, but no dryer. I never knew from dryer sheets; my mother used fabric softener and hung the wash out on a clothesline that went from a hook outside the bedroom window to a hook on the utility pole out back. You might think she (and by she, I mean me) only did this in the spring and summer time, when the weather was warm, but you would be wrong. My mother never let a little thing like mother nature's timetable dictate what to do with her clean laundry (or anything else for that matter).

This wasn't too terrible in the fall when the sun could still really pack a wallop. It was slightly irritating to hang out or pull in during the fall months; sun or no, there was still a chill in the air and my bony (read: pansy ass) hands always got cold fast, and perhaps a little cramped (all right, truth be told I hated hanging out and pulling in the wash regardless of season). Irritating perhaps, but definitely doable.

Winter was a whole different story, nay a different genre. Hanging out the window, practically being blown away by fierce northeastern winds - and no it doesn't matter that we lived on the first floor and about twenty minutes west of the beach- let me assure you that wind is wind people. Frost covered clothespins, their little metal levers barely able to be pried open. The cold, red and wet hands trying futilely to open these little wooden demons. Having to use your teeth to force them open, the inevitable lip splinter, the cursing and the crying; you cannot imagine the physical horrors involved here. Woe was me.

The battle with the clothespins and elements aside, the back breaking work of actually wearing clothing that has been frozen almost made the whole hanging out/pulling in process enjoyable. You have not lived until you have placed a still cold pair of crackling blue jeans on your quivering legs. I can assure you there is no other physical sensation quite like it, and rightly so.

Now don't think that my mother hung laundry in the snow or driving rain, because even she realized these were not weather scenarios to be trifled with. For these particularly bad days she utilized a clothes rack and the radiators scattered around the apartment. The radiator, while actually drying and warming clothes left you with tell tale bumps and humps all over your crispy blue jeans, giving you the appearance of humpbacked legs or goiters if you were a fan of the turtleneck (I learned not to be). It really wasn't so bad, I mean the cold only lasted from November until March; really no time at all. Thinking on it now, I believe my mother may have been the forerunner in character education.

This weeks tip: My mother is the best stain remover I know (yeah, she's got that going for her). When I was really young, I remember her scrubbing stains with brown soap and this worked well most of the time. However, when I got older, my mother discovered Lestoil and there was no turning back. If you can get past the smell, Lestoil will remove any stain you can think of. Mom advises applying a capful to the stain as soon as possible and rub it in a little. Let it sit and then wash the item of clothing in the hottest water it can stand. Additionally, make sure the stain is completely gone before putting your clothes in a dryer as the heat from the dryer can set a stain permanently if it is not gone. Recently one of my family members left chocolate kisses in their pants pocket. I didn't discover this until I washed and then dried an entire load of laundry. The result was a whole bunch of clothes that looked like someone used them as toilet paper. Lestoil was applied and all stains are gone!!