Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Clothes Lines

[ken (gebser]

Sharon Villines wrote:
> On Jul 18, 2006, at 8:22 AM, Douglas G. Larson wrote:
>
> > What I find a bit sad is that it sounds like the thinking about
> > clothes-lines and dryers was black and white. It was one or the other,
> > no give or take or middle ground. I get that perhaps there wasn't space
> > for a clothes line but if space could be found, why not provide both?
>
> Because we were a largely "white" group moving into a largely "black" 
> community that did not understand the value of clothes dried outdoors 
> as a new nature thing but as a poor thing. They had escaped the 
> neighborhoods where everyone's laundry was hung out all over the place 
> because they had no choice. They were working hard already to escape 
> that view of themselves; they didn't need our views on the subject.
>
> Yes, we could have started an education program, etc. but you have to 
> choose your battles. That one was one that no one really wanted to take 
> on.

I have to agree with the pro-clothesline folks for the many reasons 
cited... and for still other reasons.  It would seem reasonable too that 
perhaps if people who obviously weren't poor-- as the photos on the 
Takoma website pretty clearly demonstrate-- used clotheslines, then 
hanging your clothes, unmentionables included, in the breeze would lose 
the stigma of being 'sumpin fo po folk' and others in the neighborhood, 
who perhaps want to air dry but don't want to be the first, would start 
saving energy and the planet also.

As far as "battles" go, this seems like an easy one to win.


> Sharon
> -----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org