Clothes Stops

I had what I thought was a fun idea. I was going to write about clothes stops and ask if anyone knew what they were. I thought the question would stump everyone. Just as I was about to begin, I thought I should type clothes stops into Google and see if they knew anything about them. Alas it turns out any and every navy veteran from the sixties back to WWII knows and remembers them. It turned out from 129 comments only one did not know what they were and how they used them. That one comment was from a woman who was never in the navy. I quizzed Joyce and even she knew what they were.
Clothes stops were used to hang laundry to dry at navy boot camps until 1973. They were short chords and used like clothes pins. I remember at Great Lakes in November clothes lines would have 100 T-shirts on a line in the morning, frozen solid. I could push against one and all 100 would move.

Clothes Stop