Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

My father was one to worry and he could worry about anything it always seemed to me. Seems most of his worries were caused by myself and siblings though. One thing he would always tell us though is that we should never sweat the small stuff and in the big picture of life, it is all small. I always felt this was an oxymoron of sorts, why would he give us that piece of advice when that was all we saw him doing? Mortgage, utilities, loans, medical, food and the inevitable clothing of five kids. Sometimes I would think that he actually enjoyed worrying, that he could not be happy unless he was worrying about something. No matter how inane or minuscule it may be, he always seemed to find something to worry about.

I think I mistook his worrying as being overly protective or too controlling, but I think that had to do more with the times I grew up in rather than it was him being a parent. One thing I can say is that he always respected our privacy as long as it did not cause us any harm or upset the status quo of the home. Or any police officers knocking on the door with one of us in tow. We weren't angels growing up, far from it, but then we weren't all that bad either, albeit we did have our moments, but we never sweated it, after all it was small and that was his basic philosophy to us, so we felt that why worry when we had him to do it for us. Maybe we abused that privilege at times to the point he would be sitting on the front porch at 2am when we would finally come home. Without saying a word he would get up, walk in the house and go to bed never asking us where we had been. Not to say that we got away with it, inevitably there was some sort of price to pay and that started at 5am with a very boisterous wake up call. It never bothered me to be woke up at that time seeing how my normal time to get up was 5:30am anyway. As we would make our way down stairs and to breakfast it seemed my father was rewarding us with pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast and hash brown potatoes, that is until breakfast was over and during breakfast he would sit and jot down tings on paper and make small talk. Never asking why we were out so late and not expecting any excuses. When breakfast was over he would stand, grab his lunch and jacket and say, "I cooked it, you can clean it." and then head out the door leaving the piece of paper he had been writing on held down by his plate. Clearing the table and walking into the kitchen we would see that he had used every frying pan, bowl and utensil at his disposal fixing our grand breakfast for us with all the spills, splashes and scorched bottoms to frying pans that he could make. Keep in mind that we had what was called Revere Ware, copper and stainless steel and he expected it to shine without being scratched from the steel wool scouring pad, so this entailed that we pour water in the pans and boil them until all the remnants were released and then "lovingly" wash them. Everything had to shine or when he got home he would pull everything out of the cabinets and make us do them all over again, didn't have to tell us, the noise from the kitchen told us we were going to be doing it again, so we did it right the first time.

We had the cleanest windows and window sills in town I think, that was usually item number 2 on our list of things to do and not with Windex, but rather with vinegar and water and newspaper. There better not be one dead bug in the windows either or cob web in one of the upper corners. Do you know how hard it is to get Vaseline off glass? I do and it is not an easy thing to do.

We had hardwood floors, so I guess you can imagine what item number three was. Sweep, mop and then wax them and only with paste wax, nothing liquid that did not require buffing. Moving all the furniture sucked, but the buffing of the floor was easy. Grab the old olive drab wool Army blanket, park my younger brother on it and drag him around the house until the floors shined.

Next were the bath rooms and these too best be spotless. Everything under the lavatory had to come out, all porcelain had to be cleaned and shined, all grout had to be bleached and whitened and then the tiles washed and cleaned. My father never let us throw away a used tooth brush, they had a second life in the bath room and that was to clean it and clean it thoroughly.

The next items led us outside, I guess he felt we needed the sun and the exercise. Lawn was always nice and when he mowed, it was always with the gas powered mower, when we mowed it was a push type rotary mower. Edging along the drive and sidewalks with hand clippers and the bushes trimmed and squared with those unwieldy over sized scissors that made your shoulders, arms and neck ache for several days afterwards. Then we had to dispose of the grass clippings and leaves properly. That meant bagging them in brown paper grocery bags, folding the top neatly and taping them closed and marked so that the gardener that my dad got vegetables from could come by and pick them up and add to his compost pile. Then the drive itself needed to be scrubbed with washing detergent and bleach until all stains were gone or barely noticeable. Yes my father took pride in his house and it showed through the efforts of our not sweating the small stuff.

The garage was usually last on his agenda. I do not care how clean and organized it looked, he would always decide that it would look better if things were rearranged and cleaned completely out and if in the process we spilled anything on the drive way, we would end up washing it again. My father liked light and lots of it. He said it always made a place look cleaner, less dingy, so our garage on one side had a row of windows front to back, these too had to be cleaned and treated just as equally as the house windows. There was no ceiling in our garage, just open rafters and beams, these had to have any bird's nests removed and then disinfected to kill any mites or other parasite that it might have carried and and let's not forget those industrious spiders and their magnificent lace work. I wold ask my dad why he never used pesticides or insecticides, he would answer that most bugs were due to things not being as clean as they should be and why should he invest in things like that when he had four sons and a daughter. He thought we were the best exterminators money could buy.

When he would arrive home we would be waiting with a glass of ice tea for him, fresh, nothing made yesterday, the mail and his newspaper. He would always ask the same thing, "Why do all of you look so tired? You act as if you had to work today." Then his "inspection" would start, if we followed him around he would look a bit more thoroughly than just leaving him alone and let him get it over with. Of course we never did anything 100%, there was always some little something, an over sight we would miss and he would single out just one of us to come to take care of what he had found. One thing about him, he was not partial, we all shared the same fate and he did not want to hear any excuses or the pointing of any blame. All five of us were in this together. When one would mess up, we would all pay for it, that was my father's way.

Once done, he would sit in his recliner, read the mail, sip his tea and then start on the reading of his newspaper. The newspaper was always the way we knew if he was satisfied with our efforts, if he popped the pages instead of turning them quietly, we knew we would be doing something over again. We did not disturb him during this time in fear we may plant a seed and give him other ideas or maybe that he had forgotten something he wanted done. Once done he would stand and go to each of us and ask what our plans were for that evening. Seems that we all always had the same answer, "Too tired to do anything tonight."

In a sense maybe he was glad we never sweated the "small stuff", it saved him and mom a lot of work around the house. Sitting at the dinner table on those occasions, he still never mentioned the fact that we were out till 2am roaming the streets, he would continue with his small talk and start his jotting down on paper. I would shudder when he would say, "I passed a house on the way home from work, they had repainted it and it looked very nice." Something in the back of my mind could picture paint brushes and ladders in my future. I would think, "Maybe I need to start sweating the small stuff." Because it was apparent that by not doing so was costing me dearly and ruining my social life. Even though one of us thought about it, being four others in this home maintenance crew it was inevitable that the thought was not unanimous. One of us would be the downfall of the other four and we would just sit and stare around the table at each other.

When I look back on it now, I smile and when I talk to my younger brother about those ruined summer days and weekends working when all of our friends would be at the lake swimming, fishing or just hanging out, we would laugh and then go quiet lost in those days when not sweating the small stuff added up to a lesson in why we should worry. Actions do have consequences and one's actions affect more than themselves. Do I regret any of it? Not in the least, it taught me things that have stayed with me through out my 54 years in life. My father always said the best lesson in life to be learned was the one you learned the hard way, it was more apt to stick with you and not forgotten. Examples and impressions were two of my father's more formidable teaching tools and he could use them quite well and very effectively. He had a way of driving a point home without ever raising his voice or his hand and always gave you time to think about it.

On May 17, 1973 I was informed my father was dead. In the late 1960's he was diagnosed with degenerative despondilisys, bone cancer of the neck and lower back. He woke that morning to find that he was paralyzed from the mid chest down. He reached over to his night stand, washed down a handful of pain pills, muscle relaxers and sleeping pills with a half bottle of Vat 69 scotch and then ended his worries with a .25 caliber bullet. The last conversation I remember having with him was about two weeks before I went into the Air Force, "Ron, remember that we are never without responsibility in life, that no matter what you do there will always be some one you are responsible to and things you will be responsible for. Never think you are any better than the one that stands next to you or think you are any less than them. Know where you came from, how you got to where you are and those that helped you along the way. Be proud of your accomplishments, but never prideful. Remember that nothing is ever free, that you earn everything. Never be afraid to try something you have never done before and never think there is anything you can't do. Never take advantage of another's weakness or use that weakness against them. Enemies are easier to make than friends, so think about what you do or say before it is history. Never be ashamed to fail, just remember you tried, a lot of people never do that much. Do not be afraid to speak your mind or what you may think is best, a collective thought is always easier to accomplish than a single thought of one person. Respect another's life, idea and the way they choose to live their life. Advice is only good to the one giving it, what may work for you may not work for the one you are giving it to. Be careful when you talk about yourself and family. Remember your family and remember what family is. There is no one else outside of you and family you can depend on. Hold on to your values and beliefs and what you were taught. Remember you only have to speak the truth once." This is not verbatim of that evening, but it is what he wanted to tell me. I think he had already at that time in his life realized that his days of worrying were coming to an end and soon he would not be with us any longer. Do I miss him? Yeah, I do, but one thought I can take comfort in is in the fact that he is no longer suffering or worrying. He is not sweating the small stuff any longer.

Later...