Cross-Posted at Almostgotit.com

My “Writing Humor” class in Iowa bonded deeply with each other last summer. There’s something about writing, laughing, and nearly drowning together that will do that to people, I suppose.

One of my classmates was a banjo-playing lawyer named Sheila Simon, who published an article promoting the use of clotheslines in the Chicago Tribune not long after our stint together in Iowa City.

Here's why Sheila and I hang up our laundry:

1. Save a hundred dollars your electric bill every month.
2. Keep your house cooler in the summer, and save on your AC bill, too
3. Hanging laundry takes much less time than you think
4. Line-dried laundry smells wonderful
5. You paid for that yard and all that landscaping, so why not enjoy it?
6. Get to know your neighbors, too
7. Help humidify your house in the winter
8. Join virtually every other modern country on the planet
9. Get your daily ration of Vitamin "D"
10. You can still use your clothes dryer for emergencies

And just a little more about humble Sheila.

We particularly enjoyed a story she shared about her father driving the entire family to MacDonalds, where he gravely recited their lengthy take-out order... to a concrete traffic post.

Eventually, we learned that Sheila’s family is from Illinois. Later still, we learned that the take-out order had been delivered in the familiar, sonorous voice of a certain former Illinois legislator and presidential candidate.

Yeah, THAT Simon.

Nor did Sheila tell us that she was a politician herself, having just completed a (sadly unsuccessful) run for Carbondale mayor last Spring – with a little help from another Illinois senator, last name of “Obama.”

More about clotheslines:

• Project Laundry List: everything you need for air-drying (and for low-energy clothes washing, too)
• Vermont Clothes Line Company: more air-drying supplies and ideas
• Clothesline rule creates flap: Boston Globe article on states which are once again embracing "The Right to Dry."
• Do clotheslines really lower property values? Discussion, with many good links
• A Line in the Yard: The Battle over the Right To Dry Outside New York Times article on the world-wide resurgence of clotheslines

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