Working on the line

 osters.com

Wet clothing pinned and clipped on lines

Towels and pants on one high end,
Sheets and shirts other end of twines,
Hanging down low as centers bend.

But, in the middle, too shy to publicly fly,

Hangs the underwear, bleached and white.

Playing hide and seek from those near-by,

Wanting oh-so-badly to take flight.

Oh, for a strong wind to play,

Coming across and sweeping away
The blues, the whites, and the gray,
Onto tractor windows, passing this day.

Bras, panties with hearts, boxers brave

Landing square on a farmer's face,

No dignity there is left to save,

Underwear at last has found a place.

How to hang up clothes

I have had much experience with laundry on the line, years and years of it.  

I wrote this poem with a head full of memories and my mother's commands to hang the underwear in the middle of the second line, out of sight.  "We don't want neighbors to see what we wear." 

 Neighbors?  The nearest lived a half  a mile away.  The lines were behind the house.  But I was obedient. 

If anyone wants to sing the praises of laundry drying on clothesline, go ahead. I will not be agreeing with you. Too many images carrying laundry basket after each other has left me with a desire to never hang clothes out blowing in the wind. Sorry.

 

This was originally post in A-Z bloghop in 2015.  I re-posted it in 2021.

Fill in the blanks: _____

 

 arguments across history

 "You're the extremist, not me!"

"People like you should not have freedom of speech!"

"WHAT? Me?  No, YOU should be silenced."

Far LEFT? Far RIGHT? Fights in the street. Men in black smashing store windows. No whites on campus this day. YOU can't speak here...YOU don't agree with us.

Lord, help us! Will children be banned from the seesaws or swings because they are dangerous.

So tired.

What about these "crazy/far out ____" ideas? Fill the blanks in with descriptive words to describe what you think of the statement.**

A.  ___ Girl Scouts with survivalist instincts who regularly steal one cookie from each box of cookies because they deserve it.

B.  ___ Lutheran Women's Knitting Society who believe Catholic Women's Knitting really suck and plan to unravel all their projects.

C.  ___ Community Soccer Team for Preschoolers who kick the daylights out of the referee because he always blows the whistle.

D.  ___ Baptist Church Choir who plan to defeat and possibly beat up Methodist Church Choir in Christmas competitions because they think that the Methodist soprano is a ringer. 

E.  ___ Irish Dance festival having an Irish soda bread food fight against a Ballet school at fundraiser because they all think they are so hoity-toity.

F.  ___ Patients in care facilities who sabotage orderly coffee room because orderlies are not solicitous enough when helping patients.

G.  ___  Sports shop employees who loosen skateboard screws because those **** kids listen to wrong kind of music and are just plain irritating.

H. ___ librarians who remove Hemingway books from shelves because he was an alcoholic and had a promiscuous life style. They also have banned Dr. Seuss books.

" Enraged Sunday School teachers who insist children use the New American Standard Bible, NOT the King James version.:

I hope you can write something (totally weird)  in the blanks.

 
Just how far will this go? Statues have been toppled.  Former presidents have been condemned because they owned slaves in the 1700s. Explorers have been reviewed, revised and censored because their discoveries led to unknown consequences.

Who or what is next?

 

Spelling has gone by the weigh side.

 Spelling was always a part of school, learning to read, becoming a writer, and all the other academia opportunities. In 1993, a new curriculum came into being, one that said learning to spell was obsolete.  Computers will have spell check, won't they? Everyone will use computers anyway, so do away with cursive writing.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Granted, these are MILD misspellings.  The really bad ones are horrible. 

   

 

 

 

This can go on forever. It is getting worse.  I should carry a red marking pen with me to do what teachers do.