I’ve missed that wonderful aroma of sheets and towels coming in from the fresh air. Sadly, my house deed states, “no clotheslines,” meaning no tee shirts flapping in the wind on a sunny day. Generations X and Y have probably never inhaled that glorious smell. Now all our sheets come out of the dryer. The manufacturers have tried, but there is still money to be made by the person who gets that little delight just right.

Yesterday, I had reason to mourn the loss of that washday joy – the only good part of the laundry process I remember from being a kid. I was sorting sheets – a mini-mountain of sheets. We were cleaning out our large linen closet.

I acquired my mother’s sheets when she died, I brought them home because I thought, hey, sheets and towels wear out. Why not stash an auxiliary supply? As we emptied storage units, the stashing continued until it spilled onto the floor of my linen closet.

I didn’t completely sort them at the time. BIG mistake. But since Mom slept in a queen and had a king in her guest room, I wasn’t too worried. In fact, I was pleased because although I had never owned a queen bed, Richard had brought one to our marriage – for the guest room. Being a guy living alone, he used gray sheets, blue sheets, and polyester sheets. But I banned them, not allowed in my white cotton world.

As a kid, my mother taught me about proper percale sheeting. Linen manufacturers don’t use “percale” much anymore. Today it’s “thread count.” But whatever we call it, percale and its new cousins indicate a tightly woven, 100% cotton, almost satin-like sheet. Mom never allowed even 1% of polyester on her beds. “White cotton sheets can be washed, bleached, and do not retain odor.” That was her standard. I guess that’s how it became mine.

Her rules for “the right thing” extended to mattresses, shoes, and quality eyeglasses. “If you take care of your feet, your back and your eyes, you’re good to go. Buy quality upfront and take care of what you buy. Oh – and never pay retail.” She always took me to her mandatory January white sales.

So yesterday, with the contents of the linen closet stacked around us, we sorted, measured, and sniffed the cloth mountains. It didn’t take long to realize that the twins, doubles, queens and kings were all cohabiting indiscriminately. And although they were clean, they smelled stale to me. On to the laundry. Omigod. Two big black bags of sheets. Heavy, heavy, heavy. And those bags included a few of my mother’s “mongrels.”

When Mom moved to Warren, she had brought all the twins, doubles and kings from her house in Massachusetts. She also bought a new queen bed and needed to shop. But she only purchased the fitted queen bottoms.

“Mom, where are the top sheets? Why didn’t you buy queen sets?”

Totally dismissive, she said, “Do you know what they charge for those sets? I’m cutting up my old doubles and sewing two or three feet onto the bottoms of my good doubles.” Mongrels.

“But Mom, they aren’t going to be wide enough.”

She was having none of it. “I will sleep in the very middle of the bed. It’ll be just fine.” There was no reasoning with her. “It’s my bed, not your worry – OK?” That was the end of that. We found Mom’s mongrels mixed in the white sheet mountains. They will see duty only during frost warnings in the gardens.

Our towels stacks are getting a once-over as well. Mom’s white guestroom towels slid right in beside my all-white inventory. But none of Mom’s personal towels made it to my house. She brought her pink towels from my childhood years to Warren. “Mom, you always bought quality linens. These towels are so thin – they’re from the Eisenhower administration.”

She stocked her guest bath with heavy, plush towels. She used only her thin pinks. “I finally have them thin enough to fit into my personal nooks and crannies. Those new-fangled towels are too thick.” I had no answer to that. Discussion ended.

So now our big linen closet looks neat, labeled, and very white. All except the bright, colorful stack of beach towels. Am I ever going to the beach again? I doubt it, but the grandchildren use them when they’re here… for 3 or 4 days in July.

And writing this, I just realized that Mom’s frugal mongrels, will be the only future source of that bright outdoor aroma. When I call on them for overnight garden frost duty, they’ll come into the house smelling like sunshine and fresh air. Ah, another childhood memory saved. May and June, you can’t come soon enough.

Marcy O’Brien writes from Warren, Pa.