Published: June 05, 2008 02:32 pm            

Larry Penkava - June 4, 2008

There’s at least one town that’s decided to do something to conserve energy.

Southampton, N.Y., located on the ritzy flipper end of Long Island, has repealed its ban on hanging laundry outside on the clothesline. According to the Associated Press, the Town Board banned outside clotheslines in 2002 after complaints by snooty homeowners that their neighbors were being crass by airing their laundry in the back yard.

After further review– and energy prices that affect even many of the wealthy residents of opulent homes – it was determined that hanging out clothes in lieu of using the dryer could be a good thing, so long as it’s done in a manner that wouldn’t be considered unrefined by the local rich denizens who could care less about the cost of a kilowatt hour.

Town Council member Anna Throne-Holst apparently isn’t among the upper class. She said being able to hang her children’s clothes on a line outside instead of drying them in a machine will keep her electricity use down. “If you have three teenage sons like I do, your energy bill is going through the roof,” she said.

Many other residents must have felt the same way. Some said they had ignored the ban despite a possible $1,000 fine or six-month jail term.

It’s possible the police force turned a blind eye toward the ordinance as well since no Southampton citizen has been indicted for public display of underwear.

I’m really happy for Southamptonites, who no longer have to look over their shoulders while pinning up their Fruit-of-the-Looms under cover of darkness. Now they can proudly display their laundry for all to see.

All this makes me wonder why local governments haven’t gone overboard in the opposite direction. In other words, if cities can limit water useage, why couldn’t they draw a line in the sand when it comes to electricity or other forms of energy?

Towns that own the utilities, such as the electrical grid, could tell residents they can’t go beyond, say, 1,000 kilowatts or their power will be turned off. Use more than X amount of natural gas and you’ll be sitting in a cold house.

What if the federal government chose to go back to gas rationing, á la World War II? That would put lots of folks on bicycles and mopeds, for sure.

Energy conservation, if mandated by government, could lead to the loss of forests as people turned back to wood burning, as in the ‘70s. Americans are a creative people, so you can be sure there’d be plenty of ingenious solutions to the energy crisis.

We need more towns with the foresight of Southampton, lifting counter-productive bans on everything from clotheslines to porch furniture, from tall grass to junk cars.

Let people live within their wherewithal, even if it means keeping the yard mowed with a herd of goats or composting all their collard scraps. Remember: a well covered by a sheet of scrap tin is a covered well.

If Bubba keeps his privy clean, more power to him. And the same goes for Sally’s 40D flapping in the breeze.



Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, hopes he remembers the clothesline next time he mows.

        

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