CLOTHESLINES:GONE

Clotheslines were important to me as a child. They seemed to be a part of backyard games. They also made your clothes smell good, too. Today, you don't see many. You see fewer in actual use.

Chin ups or pull ups were performed or at least attempted on clothesline posts all over town. They were even part of our neighborhood olympics, though I never won the gold, silver, or bronze in that category.

A clothesline pole was necessary on our clothesline because it ran about 100 feet between posts. So a pole was propped up midway to withhold the weigh of many wet clothes. It served as first base in our backyard baseball games. It was much farther to first than to second, but, hey Crosley Field and Sportsmen's Park also had their peculiarities.

The line itself served, of course, as the goal posts for our extra points in football. We even drop kicked, so if Crosley and Sportsmen's didn't date me, then the drop kick will. Oh we kicked traditionally, too. That is straight on. No one I ever knew until the mid-70's kicked soccer style. And if we didn't have a holder or a tee, we'd simply drop kick it over the line. The extra points were pretty automatic, but sometimes a low hanging clothes line or a sudden growth spurt could result in a receiver getting, well, clotheslined in the end zone.

Had we had all the room for games as featured in the picture, there's no telling what we could have come up with. But I miss the games and the clotheslines.