Great Drying Day

As my grandmother, Helen, used to say:  It's a great drying day!

It is in the 70's, rare in August in VA and there's a nice breeze blowing.  I love my bedding dried outside.

I have to stretch to get the wooden spring clothespins in place.  While I hang clothes, I think about all the other women who hung clothes here, back near the detached garage with the ivy nearly enveloping the side. I have to pull some of that down.

The first women who hung laundry here were surnamed Shea and they had no choice but to hang laundry. The first Mrs. Shea must have used a big tub and a mangle. A later Mrs. Shea used an old wringer washer set on the back porch.  We enclosed the back porch, making it part of the kitchen,

The 1960's Mrs. Shea eventually had a more modern washer inside. Eventually, she also had a dryer.   Then the house went to one of the Foster's from Foster's Funeral Home and was broken up into apartments.

Patty and Chuck used the old clothesline and returned 256 to a one-family home.Then Chuck died and Patty moved away. She owned the mother-in-law house for 256 for a long time after she sold 256.  Then Kate, an excellent writer who has interviewed President Obama, moved in.   She dated Aaron, also a reporter, who lived down the street.  They got married and started renting out the house next door.

We had to re-string the clothesline when we got here, but it is still in the old backyard where the camellia bushes are now 15 feet high.

There's a short story by Tillie Olson called "I Stand Here Ironing."  My thoughts today are called "I Stand Here Hanging Wash."