# The proper way to hang your laundry



## Pappy (Oct 29, 2018)

I remember our old clothesline where gramma hung the weekly laundry. I thought the following was kinda cute;








[FONT=&quot]                 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS, sans-serif] 
 THE BASIC RULES FOR CLOTHESLINES:  (If you don't even know what

clotheslines are, better skip this.)



 1. You had to hang the socks by the toes... NOT the top.



 2. You hung pants by the BOTTOM/cuffs... NOT the waistbands.



 3. You had to WASH the clothesline(s) before hanging any clothes -

 Walk the entire length of each line with a damp cloth around

The lines.



4. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always

Hang "whites" with "whites," and hang them first.



5. You NEVER hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail!

What would the neighbors think?



 6. Wash day on a Monday! NEVER hang clothes on the weekend,

 Or on Sunday, for Heaven's sake!



 7. Hang the sheets and towels on the OUTSIDE lines so you could

 Hide your "unmentionables" in the middle (perverts & busybodies,

 Y'know!)



8. It didn't matter if it was sub-zero weather...



Clothes Would "freeze-dry."



9. ALWAYS gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes!

Pins left on the lines were "tacky"!



 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.



 11. Clothes off of the line before dinner time, neatly folded in

 The clothes basket, and ready to be ironed.  IRONED??!! Well,

 that's a whole OTHER subject!



12. Long wooden pole (clothes pole) that was used to push the

Clotheslines up so that longer items (sheets/pants/etc.)

Didn't brush the ground and get dirty.



 And now a POEM...



 A clothesline was a news forecast, To neighbors passing by,

There were no secrets you could keep, When clothes were hung to dry.

It also was a friendly link, For neighbors always knew

If company had stopped on by, to spend a night or two.



For then you'd see the "fancy sheets", And towels upon the line;

You'd see the "company table cloths", With intricate designs.

The line announced a baby's birth, From folks who lived inside,

As brand new infant clothes were hung, So carefully with pride!



The ages of the children could, So readily be known

By watching how the sizes changed, You'd know how much they'd grown!

It also told when illness struck, As extra sheets were hung;

Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe too, Haphazardly were strung.

It also said, "On vacation now", When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, "We're back!" when full lines sagged, With not an inch to spare!

New folks in town were scorned upon, If wash was dingy and gray,

As neighbors carefully raised their brows, And looked the other way.



 But clotheslines now are of the past, For dryers make work much less.

 Now what goes on inside a home, Is anybody's guess!

 I really miss that way of life, It was a friendly sign

 When neighbors knew each other best... By what hung on the line. 




[/FONT]​[FONT=Comic Sans MS, sans-serif]


[/FONT]​





[/FONT]


----------



## Aunt Bea (Oct 29, 2018)

I always get a kick out of seeing a family of blue jeans hanging on the line.






We used to wipe down the lines before every use.

My grandmother always hung a line of sheets towards the road so people driving by wouldn't see the family underwear.


----------



## Pappy (Oct 29, 2018)

Aunt Bea....by the time gramma got grandpas long johns off of him to wash, she had to hid them in the back row.


----------



## IKE (Oct 29, 2018)

Most everything else went in the drier but my mom always hung the sheets and pillowcase outside on the clothesline.....said it made them smell fresh.


----------



## hollydolly (Oct 29, 2018)

That's exactly how my mother told us kids how to hang the clothes pappy, and yes we always would hang towels with a peg grabbing onto the next one.....and we had to dry underwear indoors because mother wouldn't let the neighbours see our undies...

Have to disagree tho' with the clothes drying in the ice..they never did... we always used to have to bring them in frozen like a board ..and hang them on the kitchen Pulley and let the heat from the gas boiler do it's job..... 

Like this one...

 here were the pegs....

Not only did we have to bring the pegs in, we also had to undo the rope and bring that in too... my mother said it was too tacky to leave it out.

To this day I have a washing line outside, although it's retractable and sits against the wall of the house and ready for me to use when I was large items that won't fit in the dryer like rugs or  duvets and pillows...and I still have the pole that was made out of a willow tree over 50 years ago...


----------



## Pappy (Oct 29, 2018)

Ah yes, the frozen laundry in the winter time.


----------



## hollydolly (Oct 29, 2018)

Oooh yes I can feel the cold and stiffness of those shirts to this day.....


----------



## Aunt Bea (Oct 29, 2018)

It wasn't all work.

We used to make tents from a couple of old sheets and a few rocks.

Kids didn't cost as much to raise in the good old days.


----------



## Ruth n Jersey (Oct 29, 2018)

This brings back such memories. I especially remember my dads frozen long johns. Mom would take them off the line in their frozen state and haul them down into the basement and hang them up on lines she had near the furnace to finish drying. I don't know why she didn't start out that way to begin with. 

She also had a long wooden pole with a v at one end. When the wash got to heavy and started to drag on the ground she would hoist the line up with the pole.

Later on both my Grandma and Mom got a pulley that attached to our back porch and the other end was attached to a very high pole. They didn't have to go out in the yard anymore to hang the wash. 

Sometimes in the summer they would lay out the white curtains on the grass and let the sun whiten them even more.


----------



## RadishRose (Oct 29, 2018)

Then the mad dash to get the clothes off the line when an unexpected rain was imminent.

Aunt Bea, we did the same thing with the sheet tent held down by rocks!


----------



## hollydolly (Oct 29, 2018)

Ruth yes, the ''pole'' is called a clothes prop...I still use one to this day.


----------



## jujube (Oct 29, 2018)

We were the last house on the street before the railroad tracks.  When we'd hear a coal engine coming, it was all hands on deck!!! Everyone had to race out into the yard and get the laundry down, dry or still wet, before the "smuts" fell out of the air and got black marks on the clothes.

My grandmother always hung her "unmentionables" inside a pillow case to dry.

I remember coming racing into the yard once at dusk on my bike and hitting the clothesline right in the middle of my forehead.  It's a wonder I didn't break my neck.  I did do a somersault off the bike and hit the ground like a ton of bricks.


----------



## Warrigal (Oct 29, 2018)

I still hang clothes on the line. We have never had a clothes dryer but we have a very sturdy rotary hoist line and a retractable one under cover. The only problem is from birds flying overhead. Sometimes an item will be bombed from above and needs to be washed again.

I pretty much follow those rules with a couple of exceptions. I hang some clothes on hangers and this means no peg marks and no ironing because they go straight from line to wardrobe. I don't worry about getting the washing in before dark. It can stay out until I am in the mood to deal with it.


----------



## Bearwoman (Oct 29, 2018)

Hi, cute thread topic.I can remember my mother hanging clothes on the clothes line.

I had a neighbor who would hang all of her families clothing outside during the winter months.Then she would place them in the clothes dryer.That made no sense to me.

I love to hang my sheets and pillowcases outside during the summer months but when it rains I hang them on lines in the garage. I've also hung some stuff on lines in my kitchen to dry.My old  dryer died so I have to buy another one.Just bought a new washer and are enjoying it.It gets my clothing and stuff much cleaner then my old one.


----------



## SeaBreeze (Oct 29, 2018)

We lived in an apartment on the third floor, so my mother had to lean out the window to hang the clothes on a clothesline with pullies, we never had a dryer when I was a kid, not many people did.  I got a kick out of the frozen clothes in winter.  :sentimental:


----------



## Pappy (Oct 30, 2018)

One time, in our first house, my wife had to wear white uniforms to work, which see hung on a t-bar clothes line. During the night, someone stole all her uniforms off the line. Shortly after that, we had a dryer installed.


----------



## Aunt Bea (Oct 30, 2018)

Remember these old wooden clothes bars that came in handy when you needed to rinse out a few _things_ in the kitchen sink?

Hard to believe that they are still being made.

https://www.vermontcountrystore.com...MIt5uu1ZCu3gIVHLjACh0aYgwiEAQYBSABEgIjjPD_BwE

They would be great for a family full of kids with wet mittens.


----------



## Pappy (Oct 30, 2018)

I remember those Aunt Bea. My wife use to set it in the bathtub. I don’t know why?


----------



## RadishRose (Oct 30, 2018)

I bought an aluminum one from Amazon a few years ago. It's all collapsible and I use it in the bedroom. Saves electricity. In my condo community outside laundry drying is not allowed.


----------



## hollydolly (Oct 30, 2018)

SeaBreeze said:


> We lived in an apartment on the third floor, so my mother had to lean out the window to hang the clothes on a clothesline with pullies, we never had a dryer when I was a kid, not many people did.  I got a kick out of the frozen clothes in winter.  :sentimental:



For a few years we too lived in the top floor of a sandstone tenement block, and the 'drying green'' was shared between 8 apartments... we weren't allowed pullies outside, so everyone had their own specific days when they could use the washing lines outside in the green.. bit of a problem when there's only 7 days in the week. We had 6 in our family so there was a lot of washing to be done, and our specified day was  Mondays, but of course if it was raining on our day we couldn't get the washing out , and of course if it rained while the washing was out already drying, it was 6 flights of stairs to dash down to gather it in before it got soaked...


----------



## jujube (Oct 30, 2018)

Aunt Bea said:


> Remember these old wooden clothes bars that came in handy when you needed to rinse out a few _things_ in the kitchen sink?
> 
> Hard to believe that they are still being made.
> 
> ...



I still use one of those exact models in the RV.  I don't like to heat dry my bras or other delicates, so I hang them on the rack in the living area under the ceiling fan overnight and they're dry by morning.  Most RV parks don't allow you to hang clothes outside.


----------



## RadishRose (Oct 30, 2018)

My old state trooper friend told me that guys who steal women's underwear from clotheslines often set fires. He was right!

Years ago, the lady downstairs had her underwear stolen from her line. Not long after, MY laundry which I had just piled on top of our dryer out on our upstairs enclosed back porch was on fire. We were able to put it out having noticed it right away. 

Turns out, it was a neighbor boy, around 10 or 11 years old. I never knew what happened to him, they moved right after that.


----------



## Aunt Marg (May 1, 2020)

There was, and still remains (to this day) no rules and no proper way in which to hang washing in my books.

When my daughters were still at home, I used to cherish hanging out several days worth of panties belonging to myself and my two daughters on the clothesline! Must have been the quiet and simmering rebel in me!


----------

