Sep 2, 2008 By Patty Yauger 3 min read

It was Saturday morning and chores needed to be done, but what to do first?

The warm sun and mild breeze made the decision easy. I’d wash sheets and hang them on the clothesline. You don’t see too much of that anymore. It is so easy to walk from the washing machine to the dryer, flip a switch or push a button and be on to the next activity.

I was introduced to outdoor drying by my grandmother and as I fumbled with the queen-size sheets, I tried to visualize my barely five-foot tall grandmother getting the oversized bed clothing over the line.

I remembered that she had a clothes pole that would first allow the line to drop down so that she could manage the sheets and other clothing and then to be readjusted so that nothing would touch the ground.

Grandma had a wringer-type washer. The clothes would wash in the tub, but to squeeze out all the excess water she had to put them through the wringer while turning the crank. The water would be removed and the item thrown in the clothesbasket.

This was the Monday morning ritual for my grandmother. Wash on Monday; iron on Tuesday. There were specific chores the other days of the week, but for some odd reason I remember the Monday regimen.

After the clothes had made their way through the wash cycle, it was time to put them on the line.

The yard had several clotheslines that stretched from the house to the lilac hedges. There was even one in a narrow pathway in the front of the house.

While it may seem there was an overabundance of lines, each Monday from spring to fall Grandma would fill them with an array of garments and my favorite, sheets.

Now when a young granddaughter is staying with her grandmother on a Monday, her responsibility was to carry the blue bag filled with the wooden pins and dutifully produce them one at a time, as needed.

It was a good way to practice counting and to tell stories.

Grandma was a stickler about how the clothes and sheets were to be hung. Pants with pants, shirts with shirts and so on. And, one would never break up matching sheets, although I don’t remember anything but white and an occasional light blue.

Pillowcases would be hung nearby, but never mixed among the sheets.

Sometimes, in the middle of the afternoon, there would be adjustments. Some pants would have to be turned, in order to be properly dried, and sheets would be reversed.

I loved this part of the chore; as I held one side, Grandma took them off and flipped them over. I would sometimes roll up in them, trying to hide, but sooner or later she found me.

The dog, too, found it fun to take part in the hide and seek game, which would produce another round of laughter.

Before supper, it was time to remove the laundry from the line and return it to the house.

Once more, I inventoried the clothespins and as they were taken from the lines, destined for the blue bag until the next Monday.

Those Mondays long ago came back to me as I was putting my own sheets on the line. I made sure that the pillowcases were hung separately from the sheets.

Grandma would have been proud.

Patty Yauger covers Connellsville for the Herald-Standard. She can be reached at 724-626-6401 or at pyaunger@heraldstandard.com