This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Morning rituals. Most humans have them; those things we do to start a day we expect to be relatively normal. They say a lot about the kind of people we are.

Since most of us perform some kind of labor — business, child-rearing, panhandling, whatever — our morning constitutions consist of the things we do to prepare and even energize ourselves for it.

A good example is Norm, a guy I just made up. Norm wakes to an alarm clock at 6 a.m. He gets out of bed, pees, drinks something caffeinated and heads out for a 30-minute run.

Then it's back to the house for a shower, breakfast and a kiss from his significant other before leaving for the office/factory/job site.

Note: People with kids also have morning rituals, but they consist of doing them for half a dozen other small people before they attend to their own.

A lot of people's mornings go just like that, but not everyone's. Mornings are personalized, depending on such variables as lifestyle, circumstances, age, health, intelligence, even tolerances of those around us.

If one of your morning customs consists of an alarm clock that bounces you out of bed to an ear-splitting Kanye West jam, you either live alone or are dangerously close to being murdered.

My morning observances have changed dramatically through the years. Before graduating from high school, it was Mom's job to get me ready for the day by whacking me with a wooden spoon until I finally got up.

After high school, I got a full-time job. My morning absolutions changed dramatically then and did little to prepare me for the day ahead.

Because I'd been asleep for only three hours, I normally ignored the alarm until I was a good 30 minutes late. It's amazing how little sleep (or thought) I needed at 18.

After the bathroom, I threw on whatever clothes I'd worn the day before, then inhaled a Pop-Tart and a cigarette while driving downtown to a job washing cars. The boss would yell, "You're late!" — to which I would respond with a suggestion both degrading and sufficient cause to get me fired had I said it out loud.

That was how my day started in 1971. I could have easily lived the rest of my life like that. Some of my contemporaries did. None of them is alive today. But the Army got me. Nothing was the same ever again.

My mornings at Fort Jackson, S.C., consisted of being driven out of bed in the middle of the night by a maniacal drill sergeant, getting dressed under shouted threats of violence, marching to chow and then exercising until I threw some of it back up.

After the Army, it was a church mission. Wake up, pray, eat, pray some more, and then out our door to bang on other people's doors. It wasn't quite as physically energizing as, oh, say, a morning run or a Red Bull, but you work with what you got.

Later, when I was cop, my morning habits were simple. I would come home at the crack of dawn, drop 20 pounds of gear on the floor, make sure I didn't have anything gross sticking to me, and then face-plant myself in bed.

Thirty plus years and numerous surgeries later, I start my mornings at 5 with an urgent need for a bathroom. I sometimes crawl there on my hands and knees. When I'm able to stand fully upright, I leave for the office.

That doesn't sound like a lot of preparation to meet the day. But my office is just across the hall in my house, and one of my main morning rituals is you.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.