May 31, 2026

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

People move and so do clothes hangers. How many have you in your closets? Any from your childhood home, a friend’s place, stolen from a hotel along with a terry towel?

Any from another marriage? Other relationship? Certainly from a dry cleaner long out of business or a haberdashery shop or fashion store.

You must have a variety left over from years of living and moving, though probably most have been thrown to curb or taken by family.

And that variety should include the indestructible wooden ones, perhaps with pants holder. Steel of course, some of which are used by the family handy person to cut up and fashion into an instrument to retrieve something. And, of course, we now have crazy-looking plastic hangers with added do-dads that are meant to hold the garment better. These are symbolic of the age since plastic never disappears. Families will pass them down for centuries.

The wooden ones are preferred – my guess. Wood=strength. Wood=tradition. Wood=family heritage. You hang up your winter coat for the season on a hanger your mother or father used. It is thus safely stored.

Hangers follow us, perhaps like angels. Actually there is such a thing as travel hangers, which gather memories.

Look in your closet today.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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