Henrietta Hay's Column

Ogden Nash wrote, "I love Saturday, I love Sunday/ But how could anyone ever love Monday?" Monday is not exactly anybody's favorite day. Nash goes on to explain it. "What you do on week-ends you claim to adore it. / But Monday's the day you suffer for it."

I read an article the other day about the Monday Morning Blahs. Now that I am retired, sort of, Mondays are not all that different from Tuesdays or Wednesdays, but for whole generations coming along behind me, Mondays bring forth much complaining and whining.

My first knowledge of the days of the week came from Mother Goose. According to her, Monday's child is fair of face. Since I was Friday's child, I didn't have to worry, but Monday's kids always seemed quite normal. It was not until I got older that I began to realize how difficult Mondays can be. The only period of time more traumatic is that portion of the year during which we have Daylight Savings Time. That makes Mondays in the summertime especially lethal.

Before the days of automatic washers and dryers, Monday was always washday. Clotheslines all over America had sheets and towels and clothing of all kinds blowing in the breeze. In the winter as we unloaded frozen washing from the lines we simply stood the sheets and towels and jeans up on the ground until we were ready to haul the whole pile inside to thaw out. Come to think of it, I haven't handled a frozen sheet in a very long time and I haven't missed the experience very much.

Now Monday has a different meaning. The present custom of a five-day workweek and a two-day weekend is a recent invention, the result of the coming of the 40-hour week in the early thirties. Whatever we do with the weekend - be it frivolous or serious - Monday morning rolls around and its time to go back to work. There are a few exceptions to the Monday Morning Blahs, due to some mechanical re-arranging of the calendar. Most legal holidays now fall on Monday for the convenience of people who like mini-vacations. So far Christmas and Thanksgiving have been spared but even they may change some day.

The Monday Blahs are not a mere figment of the imagination. Scientists explain that our internal clocks follow a 25-hour cycle rather than the 24-hour one determined by the sun. On weekends people tend to follow their internal clocks, sleeping a little longer. But on Monday morning when the alarm clock goes off, it's like waking up in the middle of your sleep period. Of course, the amount of alcohol consumed or the number of miles hiked may also contribute to the desire to throw the alarm clock through the window.

According to heart specialists at Harvard University, one quarter of heart attacks occur on Monday. Our pulse rates and blood pressure increase each morning as we stagger out of bed, and on a Monday after two days of rest or whatever, it is even more stressful. Whether that means that we should quit working, or quit having weekends, I'm not quite sure.

A lot of things have happened on Mondays. It was on a Monday in 1987 that the stock market plunged 508 points and started a lot of unpleasant financial events, which we are still feeling. We cannot, however, blame Monday for the big crash in October of 1929. That occurred on Black Tuesday.

For those of you old enough to remember the significance of this, John Davis, vice president of the Ford Motor Company presented the proposal for a new model on a Monday. It was the Edsel.

Jesse James was shot and killed on a Monday, and it was on a Monday that John Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan. Elvis got married on a Monday. Mick Jagger was born on a Monday, which doesn't say a lot for Mother Goose's predictions.

My column comes out on Monday, so I guess I'll just have a second cup of coffee and relax until I get a new idea.