Beach Writer in the Rocky Mountains

Today, I'm a grandmother, and I don't believe that many children of today even know what a clothes line is because indoor electric and gas dryers are the conventional method of drying freshly laundered clothes and linens. What a shame. They'll never know the joy of playing tag or hide-and-seek between the coolness of wet sheets hanging on the clothes line on a hot summer day. Nor will they experience the fun of an autumn day when friends or siblings hang a blanket over the clothes line to make a fort. And don't forget the first place of learning how to do chin-ups was often on the bracing supportive end of the clothes line pole. It was also one of the first places that we learned how to work with the chore of reaching high and washing down the clothes line so that mother could take the basket of laundry outside to hang the wet clothing and linens to dry. The clothes line was also the first stage for many childhood dramatic plays and talent shows as you hung blankets over the wire lines and moved them back and forth to open the stage curtains for a makeshift neighborhood production. Not to be forgotten is the showing of home movies on a white sheet draped over the clothes line in the evening. But the most joyful of all would be to lie on the grass on a summer day and watch the white sheets flap back and forth over your head as they danced in the breeze, fanning you with coolness by their every motion.