2001-06-25 - 17:38 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Sprung

One of the early warm weeks of spring, the dreaded Spring House Cleaning used to rain on malingering boys parades.

It was the time when Moms, Aunts and big sisters donned their grubby old work clothes, which were stored from year to year in a back closet somewhere. Those whirlwinds of work would see to it that the overstuffed furniture was out on the porch for a good airing out, mattresses were aired out too. Curtains came down to be washed, mended or replaced. Windows were washed inside and out, the lower ones were boy's work. The menfolk put up the screens for the coming summer and checked the screen doors for need of repair. Walls were washed and wall paper was cleaned using that gray, silly putty sort of stuff which had its own peculiar smell. The floors suffered in their turn being scrubbed bare, when dried necessary varnishing was done.

The carpets which had gathered dust and grime from the first snowfall all through winter got rolled up and carried out for their own treatment, one by one they were hung over a clothes line with props on the line at each end so the carpet wouldn't drag.

The carpets were assaulted with weirdly shaped instruments of different materials, all having a wooden handle. Carpet Beaters they were called. The ones wielding said instrument were as beat in their own way as the carpets were when the (snicker) dust settled.

The sound of carpet beating was in existence throughout our neighborhood for maybe a week. Passing by a back yard the ever remembered sound of Whop, pause, Whop, pause -- was proof positive that Carpet Was Being BEAT and one could tell by the sound if the user was trying to get the carpet clean or merely doing lip service beating.

Seems to me that the women had their calendars marked or something so they all did their cleaning in coordination with each other -- a plot against boys I think. Ulterior motives to be later revealed.

The smell of clorox, ammonia, O-Cedar oil, paint, varnish blended and filtered through a haze of carpet dust.

It is a time of drudgery and woe for a young lad, he has so many onerous duties, gofer, hold, brush, scrub, carry pails full to be emptied (or empty to be refilled). A biggie was helping hang the carpet over the clothes line. A boy felt he was doing a manly thing helping with that. As he grew older he was acknowledged to be old enough to man the Carpet Beater, a chest expanding, shirt button popping task to begin with, soon to become a wearysome tiring of the wrist and shoulders which changed his thinking and when he realized any degree of maturity entails a greater expenditure of thought, strength and energy than when he was younger.

One of the things that galled us kids was the fact that for most of the week we couldn't sleep in our own bed but on some makeshift pallet on a floor somewhere. For the most part of the time entering the house was forbidden, we were fed finger food and ice tea out back. THE ULTERIOR MOM'S MOTIVE really griped us was that there was no house we could go to that wasn't primarily in the same condition. There was a plethora of things we could not do or places we could not go. Exile from the domicile, and aliens in our own land.

Spring Cleaning as done then, was like cleaning the Augean stables by Hercules, it seemed to last for an eternity, but at the end of that proverbial week, Mom was one frazzled, tired lady with her cohort of unwilling, rebellious youngsters and a reluctant husband.

Then a person knew that Spring Had Sprung . . . . . .

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