Why, you may ask, is house cleaning so much fun?

No. I didn't say "not so much fun". I mean it. Fun. I can explain it only as a peaceful time, a time when I have the rare opportunity to get in touch with my inner self. It also has to do with Saturday mornings.

I think I got the cleaning gene from my mother who was always cleaning or cooking or passed out on the floor. Not that kind of passed out. Passed out as in tired from cleaning and needing a break. And she wasn't really passed out. She took naps that way. Whilst dusting the old rocker she might put her head down for a few minutes and catch a few winks. I once came in from playing baseball with my friends to find mom lying on the kitchen floor asleep. I thought she was dead. Scared the hell out me. I was nine.

Cleaning to me means family doing things together. Saturday mornings were always so much fun because my brother, sister, mom and I were together, each with his or her designated chores. All of us working like little beavers. In the summer my mother liked to wash down the front porch and sidewalk, while we dusted and mopped and made beds and such. That was her passion. That and waxing the floor and making gravy.

By noon the job would be done and I'd collect my pay. I got 30 cents and two bus tokens which I used for at least one double feature at a downtown movie theatre, a box of popcorn, soda and milk duds. In my early years I leaned towards westerns with Roy or Gene, Lash LaRue, Whip Wilson, Johnny Mack Brown or Randolph Scott. (I was on stage with Lash LaRue once, but that's a whole other story.)

I suppose what started all this about cleaning was the time of year. The week before Christmas was a big cleaning week at our house. The mill was closed and mom spent a lot of time at home, doing what she loved. Cleaning and baking cakes. The fragrance of Johnson's Wax and melting chocolate lingers in my olfactory memory still. I can close my eyes and see mom stirring batter or grating coconut.

I think the idea of intensive house cleaning at the end of the year has something to do with starting the new year off with a clean slate. Black eyed peas and collard greens for luck, and a clean house, help to make the season bright.

Now, if you'll excuse me I've got some sweeping to do.