To Clean As I Go
My life stripped bare is barely here –
just bone and skin and promises.
Yet it is mine, that you may see
the who and what I hoped to be.
Although I dress in modest white
and clean though I am out of sight,
regard this plan for laying out
a single path ‘tween sure and doubt
that I may turn at journey’s end
and say I’ve been good foe or friend.
And I’ll attempt to keep it white
Until you’re turned and out of sight.
– Charles Brady
You may have seen one or more of those ads in the popular series of television commercials for a major insurance company where the actor/spokesperson ends up announcing, “We know a thing or two because we have SEEN a thing or two.”
That’s me! I know because I have seen a thing or two and because I have digested and absorbed more than what I can see with my eyes only. And I have grown comfortable, for the most part, with who and what I think I have grown into
But I know more than ONE thing or two, since I have lived long enough to have absorbed many small lessons and to have turned a few of them, over time, into major TRUTHS to live by (And I know just how close to cliche that sounds!) You, no doubt you have come to – or will as you get a mite older – your own conclusions.
I’d like to tell you of just one such lesson, one that began with a picture in a corner of my eye, followed by a glance at a chart on the wall. And over the years that moment morphed into a pretty fair representation of the rule for my life.
Since most of you have not been around me a lot (My family and friends have heard all this stuff and are a mite bored. ),I will tell you about just that one of the many important lessons I learned while still terribly young, and I learned it – although I may not have recognized it at the time – from my Basic Training days in US Army.
Here it is:
CLEAN AS YOU GO! This is a sign I saw on my first morning in my company mess hall at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, on August 21, 1949. (I’ll pick up this point further on.)
Let that sink in for a moment and then stretch out the meaning, I hope you begin to see that the rather simple message is saying more than just “keep yourself and your private space clean while working here”. As I lived and traveled afterwards, those words have served me as a guide for life, and I will explain all of that shortly.
I know from contacts with old army buddies (22 years – half as an enlisted man/Senior NCO and half as an officer), that we have a lot of catch phrases from our early days with Uncle Sam’s Army. Some are ingrained – like “Take ten; Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em! (Announced by Platoon Sergeants at ten minutes before every hour!)
How about this one: “You mother’s not here to clean up after you, Private Brady!”
From miserable days and nights on bivouac, we learned that in reading military maps we “Read Right Up” when reporting – very important when calling in coordinates for artillery strikes on an enemy.
On the rifle range, we were taught to “Breathe, Aim, Slack, and Squeeze (for the short interval when one is sighting and preparing to fire his rifle.)
These simple phrases provided continuity in the training of the rawest of raw recruits from every corner of the country….and the powers to be in the Army knew that its trainees were receiving essentially the same instructions from every training base, from Fort Jackson, South Carolina (my home for the first six months) to Fort Ord, California.
There were signs everywhere to remind us of our duties and of how to protect ourselves against every possible peacetime or wartime enemy. When I was a kid in Brunswick and Savannah, Georgia during World War II, particularly effective signs everywhere warned us that, “Loose Lips Sink Ships.”
From all the guidance and intelligence provided by the US Military, there was one visual suggestion that got my attention immediately and has remained with me even today. On first glance it may seem as innocuous as “Keep Off The Grass” or “Scranton City Limits.”
(An aside: While stationed at Fort Hood, Texas in the 50’s, we noticed signs that sprung up overnight saying, “B.T.A.O.T.A.” Shortly after, the Commanding General announced a contest and awards for anyone who knew what the initials meant. Over the next week, we all submitted our guesses. My unit’s choice was, “BOTTLE THROWING AT OFFICERS TOMORROW AFTERNOON,” but it didn’t win.
The actual winning slogan was a ho-hum, “Back The Attack On Traffic Accidents.”)
Back to the sign in my Mess Hall which read: CLEAN AS YOU GO!
Yep, back in Basic Training, the cooks knew what they were doing. On KP duty that first week, I was assigned to POTS AND PANS, but I didn’t know exactly what that entailed. I was amazed at how many pots and pans were used by three cooks in serving three fairly simple meals to about 250 hungry men IN ONE DAY! I was at the sink pretty much from the time the first cook lit the gas stove until I was paroled at the end of my sentence.
Meanwhile, other poor slobs were cleaning every other dish, bowl, saucer, utensil etc…over and over, Even the cooks cleaned a few things. (And we all swabbed the wooden floors until the knot holes cried mercy.)
It was not until I could breathe again (I had KP two additional times during Basic) that I could imagine what the place would look like without constant cleaning. So, on the simplest level, CLEAN AS YOU GO meant simply clean as you go.
Over time, however, I realized that there was more to those words than were on the surface, more perhaps than had been intended when some anonymous clerk printed that sign and slapped it on the wall. Only gradually did I realize that those four words announced a pretty fair guide for leading a pretty good and complete life.
My reasoning is thus: If one, as much as possible, keeps his life clean as he is living it, he will be able to anticipate and prepare. He will not too often get too deeply in debt, and may not persist in ways detrimental to himself. He may more quickly learn from mistakes and know when things are about to get out of control.
I realize how this may sound, I accept your criticism – BORING!
I think we can do all this without being exceptional human beings, although I realize that many don’t want to live by rules and would rather live for the excitement of now knowing what is to happen next.
A perfect rule to live by? No, and no one rule works even for one person. But it may work as well as any other to prepare us for those events outside our control.
For example, Mother Nature always has her say, and we do inherit problems in our DNA. We are sometimes judged unfairly in matters that count, and sometimes we are limited physically.
I’ll let you in on a couple of ways my family attempted to CLEAN AS WE WENT:
Early in our married life, with children coming, and facing other facts of married life, we found that there was not enough money coming in to satisfy everyone asking us to pay them. And although we did not think we were wasting even a penny, we came to realize we had to have a plan just to save our sanity.
Since Lee was a lot better at keeping hard and fast rules, she became the boss of the money. We decided that each month we would always pay our bills and live on the rest – that is to pay as we went. Gradually, this worked, but it took a long while until we had a spare dollar or to confirm that we had made good choices.
When we first left the relative security of Army life for the insecurity of, “let’s go back to college,” we stuck with that ONE plan and it worked. We gradually instituted a tiny savings plan and when a small windfall came, we paid off a major dept and continued.
Later, a recall to active duty and ten more years (as an officer, with advancement and financial security) did not change our overall plans. We paid our bills each moth and lived on what was left. It has worked for us and I don’t think anyone can say our lives have been boring!
CLEAN AS YOU GO will not work for everyone, but that is not because it is not a good thing to think about as we live in the world we inhabit today Some people simply do not want to live a less cluttered life and refuse to accept any plans I could come up with. They live their lives as they wish; they grow successful and perhaps earn a lot of money. They have happy and healthy children who make them proud, and they grow older in absolute contentment.
They may get all that and fame too, and I say: Good for them!
