Spring cleaning

By Paulette Tobin (3-21-00)

Whoever said "cleanliness is next to Godliness" must have been a German. Certainly there are exceptions that prove the rule, but when it comes to being clean, orderly and just persnickety in general, it is hard to beat a German.

I remember when I was a little girl and shared a room with my teen-aged sister how it annoyed me when she left her clothes lying around. I can put up with quite a bit of dirt (for a German) but clutter really bothers me. You can't always tell this by looking at my house, but it is still true.

For instance, when I hang things in the closet, I group them by colors. No matter how much I oversleep in the morning, I have to make the bed before I go to work. Towels must be hung up in the bathroom, and they must hang straight. I love to clean closets. When I really want to annoy my daughter, I go into her closet and rearrange all her clothes so they are hanging according to length, color, season, etc.

Some of my friends think I am beyond anal when it comes to these things, but compared with my parents and most of the rest of my family elders, I am downright slovenly. For instance, my spring cleaning does not include washing of walls. (It just barely includes washing of windows.) The floor of my garage is currently muddy and has lots of leaves and dirt blown into the corners. Also, I haven't ironed a dish towel or a pillowcase in at least 10 years.

And, if my Dad could see how dirty the inside of my car was right now, there would be a lot of head shaking and "ay, ay, ays" galore.

I gave up a long time ago trying to match housekeeping standards with my parents and aunts and uncles. Back in about 1976 my mother had surgery and was laid up for most of May and June. The first time I vacuumed for her, she made me go back and start over because I hadn't vacuumed under the bed. Now that I'm middle-aged she has eased up on me somewhat - but I still sometimes catch her sticking her hand into the dishwater when she thinks I'm not looking so she can be sure I've made it hot enough.

Dad could also be quite the fussbudget, especially about his vehicles. They had to be just so. When I drove to Eureka in the summer, he used to take cleaning solutions and the SOS pad to clean the bugs off the bumper of my car. He also insisted on mowing the lawn, even with his bad heart, and it had to mowed in one day. We tried to hire someone to mow it, but no one ever did a good enough job for him.

My grandmother, Ida, could also be incredibly fussy about things. I often mowed her lawn for her and she used to drive me crazy by walking after me to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Also, she lived right along Highway 47, and she used to make me mow the steep ditch because otherwise by the time the highway department mowed the ditch, the grass would be too tall and then it would blow into her yard and "make a mess."

For years Grandma had two huge beautiful cottonwood trees in her front yard. One day when I was in high school I came to town and they had been cut down. All that was left were two ugly three-foot-tall stumps. Their offense? They had been shedding cotton, and the cotton "made a mess." I believe it was the city that had them cut down, but it was her yard, and she could have said no. In my mind, her yard was never the same after those two trees were gone. What was a little cotton compared with the beauty and grandeur of two shade trees?

When we lived in Rapid City I spent many happy hours with my Aunt Florence and Uncle Edwin, and Florence and I had several very successful rummage sales together. I always marveled at the clothes and things that Florence brought to sell, because they were ironed and pressed and looked just like new. Her housekeeping and organizational skills could have put General Patton to shame. Uncle Ed was not far behind her. His yard and garden were models of beauty and kept perfectly trimmed and pruned. His tools were beautifully kept and put away just so. We had many parties and picnics in their garage, in which they had a stove and refrigerator so they could prepare food. Their garage was so clean you could have eaten off the floor.

I remember the day my Aunt Lorraine had just moved from the farm to town and she was giving me a tour of her new house in Eureka. Its basement was unfinished, and she was explaining to me how she had taken an old goose wing and dusted each and every one of the rafters and joists in the basement ceiling. I stood there looking around the immaculate room and knew I could never meet those standards.

I'm German, and I know that means there will always be that voice in my head telling me that I should be scrubbing something. But in the future I'm planning to ignore it as much as possible.

(Paulette Haupt graduated from EHS in 1973 and from SDSU in 1977. Today she lives in Grand Forks, N.D., with her husband, Mark, and daughter, Emily. You can email her at [email protected])