Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published April 24, 2002

Some customs are already extinct

Endangered species and plants are of great concern today, but there are some customs remembered by an older generation that have already slipped away. The kind of spring cleaning women of another age were expected to do annually was drudgery and few, if any, moaned when the job was made easier.

Gone are the days when carpeting was ripped up, drug outside to be hung on a line and whacked. One precious family possession I own is a cookbook presented to my mother on Nov. 24, 1915, as first prize in baking. It is a cookbook, but as the frontispiece declares, "It is also a comprehensive cyclopedia of information for the house." The author adds, "A thousand facts worth knowing." Maude C. Cooke was the Heloise of her day.

Of carpet cleaning she advised that the rope for hanging should be left very slack before the carpet is hung. Then lift to the required height by long, strong poles. Select for whips long, smooth, flexible twigs; canes will answer. In beating the carpet, whip the wrong side first and thoroughly, then the right side. After all that work, those early women had no need for exercise machines. We should all murmur a thank-you when we turn on our vacuum cleaners.

Last week I was cleaning our bedroom and as I stretched out on the floor to reach all the dust bunnies that had collected under our king-size bed, I remembered an article I had read on atmospheric dust bunnies. According to those who venture into outer space, that vastness is full of the filthy stuff. Our solar system is surrounded with a huge ring of dust.

It does not all stay in space. Scientists figure about one speck of this stuff lands on every square yard of our planet daily. They have set up special collecting pools on mountain tops, on the surface of spaceships and at the bottom of the ocean, and they are beginning to study this atmospheric dust because they believe it holds the secret to the origin of our planet. That includes people, according to these experts, because we are made of stardust. They say the atoms in our bodies were carried in tiny bits of dust that formed around stars in our galaxy.

All these interesting thoughts made my dust bunny collecting go faster. I wondered if the song "You Are My Sunshine" might be replaced with "You Are My Stardust."

Clotheslines are definitely becoming an endangered species. A male Vermont state senator worried about that, and he has introduced a "Right to Dry" bill which an environmental group in the state is supporting wholeheartedly. The bill would ban clauses in contracts tenants and condo residents sign agreeing they are not allowed to hang laundry outdoors. The opposition argues that would violate the landlord's right to set rules.

Just as vacuum cleaners replaced whipping carpets, so the dryer threatened the clothesline. Now washday could be anytime whatever the weather outside. But for those who remembered the smell of clothes dried in the sunshine and gentle breezes it was worth the extra effort of hanging wet laundry. The collapsible rotating clothesline served as a transition from the permanent clothesline to the dryer.

Just last week I was shopping in a local store when I saw a tall display that stopped me in my tracks. It was stuffed from top to bottom with packages of clothespins. I decided if there was need for that many clothespins there must be clotheslines aplenty here on the Plateau.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.