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A hearty feast of free readings, lectures, presentations, workshops and showcases celebrating our culture, community and the wild blue yonder.
 Where inquiring minds gather.
Okanagan Institute
at Hanna's Lounge
Click here for schedule
and information. |
Arts Council of the Central Okanagan is a resource centre and advocate for the arts in Kelowna and Central Okanagan. Find us at:
8-1304 Ellis Street
Kelowna BC V1Y 1Z8
Phone: 250.861.4123
Fax: 250.861.4155
Email: Click here
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Join the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan today and you will:
» Meet people who are involved in our arts community, and stay informed.
» Receive our weekly email newsletter, The Junction.
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» Have a worthy advocate to protect your artistic and cultural rights.
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Literary Arts
In Praise of Clotheslines by Vicki Bissillion
Next time you climb between the sheets of a freshly changed bed, close your eyes and inhale slowly, deeply. What do you smell, Bounce, Tide or nothing at all?
If you are a baby boomer, try this: shut your eyes, think back to your childhood backyard with the laundry blowing in the morning breeze. You may picture pillowcases and sheets stretched between the poles, from largest item to smallest, in perfect symmetry - a forewarning of a perfectionist-in-the-making. Or maybe you picture the randomness of whatever came out of the basket first - from socks to shirts, then white sheets and finally underwear - a scatterbrain or artistic licence at work?
Did your mother use the economical method of adjacent items sharing one clothespin or did she lavish two pegs on each item? Were they square or round? Was there a prop pole to lift the sheets and long trousers off the grass? (But not too high above the grass, as every housewife knows that next to sunshine, the chlorophyll from freshly mown grass is nature's bleach for whites.) Have you ever entered a room on a freezing winter afternoon and been startled by a half-torso ghost fluttering over the hot air register - your brother's jeans - as they thawed out after a morning on the clothesline?
Go on, inhale deeply once, twice. Do you smell it? Warm sunshine and soft breezes trapped among the weave of 400 threads per inch. Proctor & Gamble lavishes thousands of research & development dollars attempting to clone that coveted 'April-fresh' scent.
If you are the child of a baby boomer, perhaps you can close your eyes and dredge up a memory of long-ago sleepover at Gramma's house. You lay there giggling at the sepia family portraits on every wall, (Your dad was such a geek!) with the sheets up to your neck, as you inhale the illusive scent of trees and the color blue, and you thought it was a new brand of fabric softener - one you wanted to tell your mom to buy.
Where have all the clotheslines gone, these testaments to homemaking, these assaults on food stains and ring-around-the-collar? Who can we blame? Some official who banned clotheslines as 'a tawdry display, a symbol of poverty, or just plain ugly' - relegated to the necessary but rarely-discussed genre of outhouses? Some folk think that laundry blowing on the line is poetry in motion; they might savour the nostalgia that this line dance evokes. Others might accept the disappearance of the washer woman's ballet as simple progress Š evolution.
As a child of the late 50's, I knew electric dryers were a luxury for the very rich. While my mother toiled for hours over her wringer washer and clothesline, my rich friend's mom simply flung the soiled sheets and shirts into her matching washer/dryer set during commercials of her soap opera.
Let us look at the economics of this progress:
B.C Hydro's Power Smart team advises the average energy consumption needed to run an electric dryer for 2 hours per week is 260 kilowatt hours a year (about $16.00), while the more efficient gas model will dry the same amount annually, using 1.2 Gigajoules (for $14.00). Neither appliance has any ill effect on the environment until you reach the day when the broken, rusting carcass must enter a crowded landfill site. Compared to the no-cost, chlorine-free method of the drying clothes on a line with natural energy, there is no contest.
Maybe we'll see resurgence in line drying as fears of global warming gain momentum.
I kind of hope so. I miss clotheslines.
We invite submissions from writers.
» The story or poem should not be over 2000 words and must be your own original work. All submissions must be word processed and emailed to us at our email address.
» Submissions must include your complete contact information: Name, Telephone, Email, Mailing Address.
» Please also include a short biography and if possible a small photo of yourself.
» The anonymity of all that submit a story or poem will be respected. Contact details supplied as part of your submission will not be disclosed to any third party.
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