Most mornings Gilda makes our bed but that’s mainly because she rises before me; while I am washing up she returns to the bedroom to make the bed. She also believes she does it better than I do. Who am I to dispute such a labor-saving belief?
I tell you this because of a recent New York Times article professing the benefits of starting the day by making one’s bed, along with the best way to do so, as well as a section covering the debate over use of a top sheet (https://nyti.ms/2xFp71l).
The first time I was required to make my bed was my first morning in sleepaway summer camp 61 years ago (prior to that seminal away-from-home event our housekeeper tidied up my sleeping quarters during weekdays. I assume my mother did it on weekends).
When my bunkmates and I arrived at Camp Massad Aleph we found our beds neatly made by our counselors. That was the last time they performed that function. Henceforth, they informed their seven-year-old charges, we would be required to make our own beds during the daily cleanup hour after breakfast. During cleanup we were assigned chores, from sweeping the floors to bringing in dry bathing suits and towels from the outdoor clothes line to cleaning the sinks. Each task rotated daily based on a chore pinwheel posted prominently on a doorjamb leading to the bathroom.
Making a bed that first time required prior knowledge of hospital corners, the de riguer method of securing a taut military look for sheets and blankets. Prior to that morning I had never heard of hospital corners. My one and only sheet at home had been fitted, not flat. Now I had two flat sheets and three navy blue wool (itchy) blankets to secure to a metal frame bed.
A counselor demonstrated the proper technique of folding up a corner of a sheet before tucking it under the mattress. The procedure is repeated for the top sheet and two of the blankets, the third blanket becoming a jellyroll placed at the foot of the bed. When precisely done, a quarter dropped on the finished bed would bounce; a broomstick handle thrust inside a hospital corner would be swallowed up all the way to the straw brush.
These weren’t idle standards. Every day an inspector judged our handiwork. If your bed failed to pass muster, if the clothing in your cubby holes wasn’t stacked perfectly with all folded items forming a straight vertical line, you’d be held back from first activity, except if it was swim instruction (there was no way of getting out of swim instruction—believe me, I tried).
At the end of each week—sleepaway camp lasted eight weeks back then—the cleanest bunks were awarded prizes such as additional candy privileges from the canteen.
When I returned home I didn’t have to make my bed again until camp the following summer, but weekend house chores imposed by our mother became part of my routine and that of my brother and sister. We had three basic jobs: setting the dinner table, clearing the dishes after meals and dusting (full disclosure—Bernie and Lee do not recall dusting as a chore but I distinctly do, perhaps because, as the youngest, I was assigned a light task). We also had a daily assignment to pick up fruit and vegetables at Joe’s, the neighborhood produce store, and buy a fresh rye bread at the bakery on Ocean Avenue (our father thought bread made any meal taste better).
Being the youngest had the previously mentioned advantage of a lighter workload until both my brother and sister moved out, leaving me for several years solely responsible for all chores.
The real beneficiary of my prolonged exposure to housework has been Gilda. Though I don’t often make our bed, I do set and take off the table and clean the pots and pans. I vacuum and do most of the shopping. But I don’t dust. Still, Gilda would probably tell you I don’t do enough around the house.
