LAST WEEK’S column covered Vermont’s Right to Dry law, which says that residents of the State cannot be prohibited from hanging laundry outside to air dry. This week you friends and neighbors had this to say about that.

Greg Reed hangs most of his laundry on an outside line. “I love the smell of clothes dried outside. Drying outside makes things crisp. I like a crisp shirt,” Greg said. “Except underwear. That goes in the dryer.” Greg uses a clothesline in winter, depending on whether he has shoveled a path to it. Someday, when he retires to Florida, he plans to have a clothesline there too.

Danielle Kelsey does not have a clothesline. “I’ve thought about it. I haven’t gotten one yet.”

Janet Wright has hung the family’s laundry on the line since her grown children were “knee high”. Summer and winter. She hangs her wash in no particular order. She dries towels in the dryer because she figures it’s faster. “There are a lot more things in this world more important than hanging clothes on a line,” she declared.

Katie Diego, who lives in the Falls, always uses the great outdoors dryer. “Because I’m poor,” she said with a smile. “It saves me about $15 a month on the utility bill.” Her line is behind the house, strung between a tree and the garage.

South of the Common in Northfield Falls, the Knaufs, Bud and Kathleen, hang their laundry on one of those metal contraptions with arms. “I like to hang laundry outside. It saves energy and I like to do it,” Kathy said. Bud allowed that he brings the dried things in sometimes but really “isn’t too much use”. We talked to two other men who simply said they do not do laundry but did not wish to be quoted.

North of the Common in Roxbury, Gloria Gerdes doesn’t hang everything outside, all the time, one reason being that the lines are in the carport which has a car in it most of the day. “I never hang out towels,” she said. “I don’t like ears on my towels. You know when you pin up two corners and the towel droops in the middle. It makes ears.” Too bad too, because she says there’s a good wind on her little ridge.

Jeanne Beckwith’s play, Love Letters (Made Easy), opened on June 24 at Lost Nation in Montpelier. We were unable to reach Ms. Beckwith, who also lives up the road in Roxbury, to see if she’s availing herself of the right to dry. The play is funny and witty with some moments so true and pathetic that one shakes their head in wonder. Congratulations to her. We loved the play. She writes in the playbill, “Whether it’s a biological imperative or the fear of living our lives alone, we persevere in our search for love, and I say Hooray for us!”

Please send us tales from your line. Imagine the impact if everyone in town saved the estimated $15 a month on their utility bill, just by hanging laundry outside. commontalk@trans-video.net