August 9, 2007
Coming through the little town of Valentine the other day I saw a sight that I have not witnessed in years. Behind a little hut of a house the newly washed laundry was hanging out to dry. It was a perfect day for such activity: dry, sunny, and with a nice little breeze. Even if you are old enough to remember the days before indoor dryers, you will have to admit that there was something unique and humorous about this particular scene: the laundry was hanging on a barbed wire fence!
It brought back memories, of course. I can remember when nearly every house had a clothes line in the backyard. I recall getting into trouble with my mother for running into the newly washed clothes and knocking them down (I think that maybe I did it on purpose—all those flapping garments and sheets were just too much temptation for a little boy with excess energy!). Best of all, I can remember the special smell of those sun-dried sheets when I got into bed at night. In spite of our modern machines and technology, sheets dried by a machine will never feel and smell as good as those that are dried outside.
In our modern world it is sometimes really difficult to remember what is important and what is not. We get fooled into thinking that we can’t possibly make it without a new wide-screen television or that latest edition computer game or cellular phone. Especially in Plano we tend to forget that most of the world doesn’t have a clue about many of those things. We take our washers and dryers (old technology!) for granted. But somewhere in West Texas tonight a little boy and little girl are going to go to bed without an iPod or a Play Station or any hope of having one in the near future. But their laundry will be clean and their sheets will smell better than ours, and even without a clothes dryer life will be good.
