When spring finally makes it to our calendars, it arrives with a variety of associations. It’s a season of stormy weather — tornadoes always accompany the mild, temperature-recycling days. There’s always lots of rain — the flowers, trees and grass are thirsty for it. It’s signaling the end of another school year, a “Pomp and Circumstance” time for some families. Closets of coats and flannel shirts give up their space for clothes that invite the sunny, balmy outside days. 

Then there’s spring cleaning. What workaholics thought of this? I recall some of our family members talking about their homes getting the annual spring cleaning. There have been some of my kin that talked about cleaning baseboards and walls. That seems to be a bit much to me. I’ve found time to do a duck-walk around our baseboards with a dust rag in hand, but wall wash downs are areas I don’t insert myself.

Sure, I scrub sticky prints off the refrigerator door and light switches. I also wipe winter dust and toddler fingerprints off glass doors, but that thorough cleaning that spring cleaners describe is out of my mindset and age category. Walls are just innocent boundary setters that I choose to leave alone. 

My mother was a blue-ribbon homemaker. Her three full meals every day were luxuries we kids didn’t know how to appreciate. Hers was mostly “scratch” cooking, so there weren’t many of our modern shortcuts in the food preparation. We had a dust mop that was stored behind the utility room door, and it got a regular workout on our hardwood floors. My sisters and I were the official furniture dusters, so Mother made sure dust was a visitor and not a homesteader.

With four children to raise, Mother washed a multitude of dirty clothes. I remember the box of Cheer sitting on the washer and the stain-removing magic that it and the warm water made. We had a dryer, but Mother only used it for rainy day washes. The backyard clothesline was her favorite drying place. I was often her helper at the clothesline. I’d pull a wet piece out of the laundry basket and hand it to her. She taught me to hang all items with their kind. All towels hung together as well as all clothing pieces. Even Mother’s clothesline was a display of cleanliness and organization.

Ordinances in the city eliminate clotheslines which are one of the downsides of city life. Clotheslines can teach a lot! They can illustrate the cleansing agent of God’s commandments, the washing of water with the word, and the restoration of mankind by the Light of the Son and the reviving winds of the Holy Spirit. If only this next generation could understand how much they could learn from a simpler life. The digital age has blinded them to the world around them and kidnapped all their free time. My mother would pity them.

Camille Anding, The Daily Leader,  P. O. Box 551, Brookhaven, MS 39602.