Ruby Plushner made some money in the cleaning business. He worked the “3 Ws” — Washington, Westminster and Weybosset streets in downtown Providence. He cleaned what needed to be cleaned. And he worked alone. He had a prospective employee once, but the guy balked at using a razor blade to clean a toilet.

Plushner did so well that he sometimes carried his ladders in the backseat of his Cadillac convertible. When he put some of his hard-earned money into real estate, he did it on Benefit Street when prices were low.

“I do have foresight,” he says.

He and his wife, Jean, live well in Cranston and Florida. Plushner plays some golf. He is 83.

Late last year, he was handed the microphone during a cruise on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. It was the usual routine. He and his songs had become part of the cruise.

“Jean and I had been dancing up a storm. I was breathing kind of heavy. And when I got the mike I said, ‘And I haven’t even had sex.’ ”

It got a good laugh — and a letter from the cruise line saying he would no longer be handed the microphone.

Jeez, some people. I mean, here’s a guy who was asked three times — three times — to sing his song about a prostate exam at a resort in the Catskills. He’s the same guy who wrote a song for his temple in Cranston that included the names of 25 members. And that song he wrote for his country club in Florida, the one to the tune of “McNamara’s Band.” It had 151 Jewish names in it.

“It can be done,” says Plushner.

Future travelers on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines are the losers here. No more Plushner.

He has written hundreds of songs. One of the latest was for Jean’s 85th birthday last week. It’s to the tune of “Makin’ Whoopee.”

“It’s a great day

You’re 85

We have each other

We’re still alive.”

He loves songwriting. It was there before and after the cleaning business and the real estate. It was there when he came home after serving as a combat engineer in Europe in World War II. It was there at least as far back as the fifth grade when he rewrote A Christmas Carol in 26 stanzas.

“And I wrote love songs for my girlfriends,” he says.

He points upward when asked where it all comes from. It is, he says, a gift.

It is very easy to consider sitting in a comfortable place with a cocktail and the song styling of Ruby Plushner, with lyrics by Plushner and music by all kinds of people. The voice seems the voice of a long life well lived.

“I don’t think anyone ever wrote better lyrics than me,” he says.

He is serious about that. He thinks his songs deserve a bigger audience. And they do, of course, because Plushner is funny and knowing and can fashion a song to the moment, then to the music. His “Second Hand Smoke” is to the tune of “Second Hand Rose.” He writes about his computer and the war in Iraq.

He and Jean grew up in New York City, but they met at a dance at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet. They were married in 1946.

Plushner and his family headed for Rhode Island after his father, who owned a window-cleaning business, ran afoul of racketeers.

Plushner went to Hope High School, but World War II got in the way of his graduation. When he came home from the war, his mother was in the cleaning business.

“I took the pail from my mother and she went home.”

And he went to work. He always said he had more than three people working because of the long, hard hours he put in. He says he took two days off a year — Hanukkah and Christmas.

“Hard work never hurt anybody,” he says.

Now, with the hard work decades behind him, he writes the songs. They are funny and poignant and silly sometimes, befitting the world he lives in. The Ruby Plushner Songbook is a big bundle of what’s been happening for six or seven decades.

“It’s all I do. I’ll keep on writing.”

bkerr@projo.com