Sometimes in life it's the little warm and cozy things that matter

As much as I love crisp cotton sheets dried on a clothesline, when the mercury dips as low as it did last week, the dryer becomes the source of comfort and luxury in my house.

I’m old enough to remember before we got the first magical box that transformed soggy laundry into cozy cushions of warmth in only 30 or 40 minutes.

Fortunately, I was too young (and therefore too short) to draw much clothesline duty back then.

I remember my mother’s red and aching hands, chapped from hanging out winter laundry, and I remember the icy stiffness of clothing brought back inside to thaw before it could be worn.

Because we were a family of five and to best enlist the help of prevailing winds, my dad had constructed an L-shaped set of lines, with three wires running east and west, and three running north and south. The bases were tees of pipe anchored in concrete.

With three babies born in 2 1/2 years (who grew into toddlers who played outside in dirt all day), those clotheslines saw lots of action with grubby kidswear and cloth diapers by the mile.

I remember my dad’s work shirts flapping in the breeze and his denim jeans held rigid with metal frame “stretchers” that gave him sharp creases.

Many winters (after the flies had mostly died off), those clotheslines were repurposed as drying racks for strips of salty/peppery beef jerky that hung barely out of reach of our old dog, Snoopy, and her successors.

As good as that jerky was, what a game changer it had to have been for our mother when the first dryer arrived, and what comfort it brought to us: warm pajamas at bedtime, fresh towels for bath time, toasty socks to slip into after playing outside in the snow.

In addition to the warmth, it’s the softness — that oh so fluffy softness — that can never happen on a clothesline.

I have a dark blue cardigan that I bought at the Anthony’s store on the Portales square sometime in my junior year of high school. Some 47 years later, it’s still my favorite top layer in chilly weather.

I break down and wash it now and again, even though it feels like flirting with disaster to launder something this old.

It was due for a refresh last week in the midst of that cold snap we had, and I had it in a load that also included few pairs of my fuzziest socks.

When the dryer buzzed, and I pulled those snuggly socks onto my cold toes and slipped into my good ol’ sweater, it was bliss, I tell you, pure bliss.

Sometimes in life, it’s the little things that matter … especially the little warm and cozy things straight out of the dryer.

Betty Williamson is wrapped in her favorite sweater as she types these words. Reach her at:

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