He has moved beyond homeowners and is trying to persuade major institutions to air-dry their laundry. When he made such a proposal to a prison in Concord, officials objected, saying the inmates would hang themselves or use the ropes to rappel down prison walls and escape.
"My response was, 'What did prisons do 100 years ago?' "
When my own children were babies, I hung their cloth diapers on a clothesline, where the sun killed the ammonia and bleached out the stains. I hung out their bedclothes because they smelled so sweet as a result, and their little toddler clothing because dryers shorten the life expectancy of any garment they heat.
When my dear mother-in-law began to weep at the sight of me hanging out the wash, I thought I had offended her religious beliefs because it was a Sunday.
No. She was crying, she said, because she had hoped her children would never have to work as hard as she had.
"What she didn't understand," Lee says, "is how hard you were working to earn the money to pay for the dryer and for the utility bills.
"Since 1945, we've bought into the Ronald Reagan-General Electric pitch that white goods [washers, dryers and refrigerators] will liberate us from the drudgery of housework," Lee said.
"All these years later, we work longer hours and take less vacation than the rest of the world."
Lee attempted to reach the first lady's press office to talk about participating in National Hanging Out Day on April 19. There was no response.
He has asked New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes, a friend of the Obamas', about hand-delivering a message to them. He is hopeful, but not optimistic, that the first family will join this movement.
"People are spending about $120 to $150 a year running dryers. And that's pretty conservative," he said.
The clothes dryer is the second-highest energy consuming appliance, behind the refrigerator, representing about 10 percent of household energy use. The average household dries about 7.5 loads a week. What if each of us reduced that by just one load a week? Lee asks.
"We are an obese society. We are out of touch with the outdoors. We never talk to our neighbors over the fence anymore," Lee said.
Hanging out one load of wash a week would change much of that.
And the bedsheets would smell wonderful.
