For the first 17 years of my life, my family had only a clothesline for drying the laundry. Dryers certainly were not unknown at that time, but they were not ubiquitous, as they are today. That clothesline seemed such an unremarkable strand in the fabric of our existence, but, looking back, it’s astonishing how much sheer labor was involved. (I should admit now, that labor rarely fell to me.) A heavy basket of wet wash had to be lugged from the back door of our home to the line, which wasn’t exactly adjacent to the house. We had a big yard. Then, each item had to be pinned to the line. Several return trips usually were required, to accumulate the lighter items that dried first. One could forget about it until one was certain everything was dry, but one did that at one’s own peril. The less the laundry was exposed to birds, the better. And rain was disastrous. We moved from that old house when I was in high school. I still remember the beatific look on my mother’s face as she contemplated her new laundry room, complete with electric clothes dryer.

(Cartoonist’s note: I apologize for not updating yesterday, but I was traveling.)