Clothes Do Line Dances a Lovely Sunday Morn'

When I was but a child, I will always remember that smell. Always. It was the smell of wet, detergent soaked clothes ready to be hung out to dry on the clothes line that stretched across my Grandparents' front lawn. My Grandpa in his bibs, green button-down shirt, years before nudity took hold. His white hair would blow in the breeze as he hung several baskets of washed clothes on the line. Sometimes I would help, but usually I would roll around on the grass with the cats. Those were perfect days, at least in my recollection, but I was young and did not really know or care about the underbelly of life that we all inherently possess. So why can't we go back to those days of careless nostalgia? The past is but a point on Hawkin's linear model of time that really does not exist.

With this in mind, I set out three plastic tubs on a slab of concrete in my driveway. One was filled with clothes, hot shower water, and all-natural, biodegradable laundry detergent. One was filled with cold hose water and the other was empty. For about an hour and a half I kneaded and wrung my clothes from one bucket to the next. Then I strung a newly purchased clothes line between some trees by the greenhouse and hung my clothes with some newly purchased clothes pins. The experience wasn't quite the same as it used to be, but lovely just as well. As I was pinning up my clothes, George, my neighbor in the adjacent log cabin walked over to ask me "what the heck" I was doing. I told him the obvious and he suggested that I put my clothes right back in my tub, put it on his porch, and he would throw them in his "beautiful" dryer and have them back to me in 30 minutes. I thanked him, but said I would like to give this a try. He persisted, saying that he's done laundry for his wife many times and he's seen underwear - "lots of underwear." I just laughed, restated my desires, and he finally returned to his cabin. George is one of many very nice and slightly dirty old men that I have met in Packwood.

It is Mother's Day and I am now sipping coffee at the Butter Butte Cafe waiting to tutor a girl in History. The sun is shining bright this day and the birds are phenomenal singers. It's a fine day to hang your clothes on the line and that long line of perfect memories as well.