HOW IT USED TO BE

Well I’ve been so busy that I did not realize that we have slipped into summer. There was no fanfare, no farewell party for spring, but it’s gone- history. And I have failed to accomplish what I witnessed and participated in every spring while growing up. Spring cleaning.

Spring cleaning would begin as soon as you could store the storm windows. Storm windows were the answer before thermal panes. They helped insulate the windows and cut down on heat loss. Every fall they were brought out of storage and installed on the outside of every window in the house. In northwestern Pennsylvania 50 years ago, the winters were harsh. Once the real cold settled in, like an unwelcome house guest, it stayed. But when the weather warmed enough to take the storm windows off, cleaning began. And it was an all encompassing endeavor.

The windows were washed, inside and out. This meant ladders because you could not access the outside from the inside. The screens came from they were stored and yep! they were washed too. Of course, washing windows meant washing curtains and drapes- in every room. Wash days (Mondays) were longer and sometimes another day was added to accommodate the extra laundry.

Any walls, like the bathroom and kitchen were scrubbed down. All the ceiling light fixtures were cleaned. Closets were emptied and then cleaned and put back together. The kitchen cabinets were also a target and so out came everything and after a thorough cleaning it was all restored to order. From the top of the house to the bottom it was torn apart, cleaned, and put back together.

The hardwood floors were the most time consuming and the hardest. Back then there was no polyurethane. The floors were finished with shellac and for some awful reason that was never fully explained to me, shellac needed to be washed and waxed. So all the area rugs had to be rolled up and the floors were scrubbed. Not mopped, scrubbed on hands and knees. Then the new wax was applied (because we just scrubbed the old wax off). That was applied by hand with the socks and underwear that were thrown out when you cleaned your dressers. It was Johnson’s Paste Wax and it had to dry before you could buff it. I don’t remember how long the drying time was but the buffing was so laborious. I think that’s why people had kids back then- so they had help wax and buff hardwood floors!

My father was a progressive guy and he found a motorized buffer when I was about 14. It was the greatest invention. The motorized part was his electric drill and the only hitch was securing the drill on the handle of the buffer. It was trial and error the first few times but he (being ingenious) finally found the right method. He cut up an inner tube, made strips from it about 1″ wide and tied that drill to it so as it vibrated it stayed right where it was supposed to. It made the whole “spring floor cleaning” almost fun. We’d push that flimsy buffer with Dad’s big drill hanging on it over the floor making it shine like it never did before. Now all we have to do is put a few coats of polyurethane on and get a good mop. I often scrub on my hands and knees though, it’s the only was to get in the corners!

I confess I started to clean the windows this spring but I didn’t get to all of them, and I have the poly on my hardwood so no need for the paste wax and some of my drapes have seen the inside of my washer. But hey it’s summer now, so spring is just a memory and so is the way we used to clean.

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