Are clotheslines hip?

So Ann Althouse is talking clotheslines now.

I remember clotheslines, and I’m not that old.  Mom would send us out to hang up the towels, sheets and (yes) underwear, too.  I’m not sure when she stopped herself, actually, but the door from the laundry room to the side yard was blocked the last time we were back home, so it’s been a while now.

I always believe that the reason for the air drying was mostly financial (was the dryer that much less efficient, or was gas relatively more costly then?  Or were finances tighter than I knew?), but she also thought the towels dried better that way.  It’s certainly a lot more feasible when you can send the kids out as a chore.  Know what else we did when we were kids?  She was stingy with buying hangers, so we had to hang our pants two-to-a-hanger.  Is that hip now, too?

But turns out — in Germany, air drying your clothes (inside, if the weather’s poor) is still the norm, as most homes don’t have clothes dryers.  And you know what?  Women with children generally stay at home or work part-time, and the expectation is that all those air dried clothes are then IRONED!  (My mother in law once ironed my t-shirts, since, at the time of our first visit there, they didn’t have a clothes dryer.)

(Oh, and there was an article floating around on air conditioning and how it’s bad for the planet but impossible to live without:  Germans don’t have air conditioning — though granted, their weather is milder than the American south — and southern Europeans don’t either — though in their case, for reasons of finance rather than noble environmentalism.)

Anyway — I’m still working on being witty/clever/erudite in my posts!