The Beauty of Clothespins
When a simple chore becomes something else
The old house that my wife Judy and I purchased ten years ago came with a clothesline. Its bent, rusty metal poles and drooping cords hurt by eyes so I made plans to tear it down. Judy stopped me. She was delighted to have a clothesline again. I didn’t quite understand why. We have a clothes dryer and it works perfectly well.
Judy told me that she likes the clean, fresh smell of clothes dried outdoors. She added that hanging clothes is a very calming, Zen-like process. So the eyesore stayed up, and I did my best to ignore it.
A few months later I hit upon the perfect solution: I would tear down the old clothesline and put up a new one. Then my next-door neighbor Scout, who sold me the house, proudly announced that he had built the clothesline with pipes left over from the construction of the city’s elementary school several decades earlier. To maintain good relations with him, I let the contraption stand a while longer.
Since Scout was almost eighty, I figured I’d replace the clothesline soon enough. I told my friends this and they warned that I’d better investigate the city land-use regulations before doing anything.
Some communities grandfather existing clotheslines but don’t allow new ones. Others don’t allow them at all…
