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Screen Doors

 

“We’ll see you soon. Until then, we’ll leave the screen door unlatched for you.”

People ask why I end each YouTube or Podcast with,  “In the meantime, we’ll leave the screen door unlatched for you.”

I’m not trying to be cute or borrow from some other tagline. It’s just that I love screen doors, and they were an essential part of growing up.

Since we moved out of The Old House in 1960, I’ve never lived in a house with real screen doors. I’m talking about a wooden screen door: lower half covered in hardware cloth, spring hinges with a strong inside hook latch.

The kind of door that went “whap” when you let go of it.

Here’s what I know about screen doors: the Old House has eleven exterior doors, and nine have working screen doors.

I asked my elders, and no one can remember the exterior doors ever being locked. The keyhole locks were unused and useless. Besides, no one had a key.

11 outside doors. 9 screen doors.

I’ve always had a love affair with screen doors. I still walk through the Old House, opening screen doors, just to hear them flap.

How do you describe the sound of a screen door slamming?

I can think of several:

Wham.

Flap.

Bam.

Creak.

Whack.

It’s hard to describe the sound because each of the nine screen doors at the Old House has its own personality and timbre.

Some of you may have never heard an old-time wooden screen door slam. All I can tell you is when you hear one, you’ll remember it.

It was one of the sweetest sounds of my childhood as four generations of ancestors opened and shut them all day long.

At the Old House, there are varying degrees of slamming. There are a few slam trackers that will literally hit you in the butt if you don’t get out of the way. I call them Mousetraps, as in, “Don’t let the screen door hit you on your way out.”

Among the nine screen doors at the Old House, there are several Lazy Boys. Their hinge springs are worn and loose. They yawn as they leisurely close, making only a slight tap on the door jamb.

The Old House had no central heating/cooling (it still doesn’t), so keeping the screen doors latched was necessary due to mosquitoes and other insects.

It sits on the edge of Crooked Bayou Swamp, so keeping insects out was a priority. Due to that, most of the screen doors stayed latched.  If you wanted to get chewed out, leave a screen ajar. It was the cardinal sin of mosquito control.

“Shut that door behind you.”

 

The latches were simple hook and eye.  They weren’t always easy to latch due to misalignments of the screen, door, and door jamb.

Because the screens were often latched, as a boy, I often made wide circles around the porches, pulling on screen doors.

The screen doors were a particular challenge at night. The older folks, being early risers, were “latched and lights out.”

Every screen would be latched. A few could be opened with a pocket knife, but you ran the risk of damaging the latch or door jamb.

You’d have to make some noise to awaken someone. You call out softly, hoping someone will hear you above the window fan.

You can rattle the door, but that will awaken half the house.  A shaken screen door makes a really irritating sound, and whoever gets out of bed to unlatch it will be irritable, too.

So you wanted one screen door unlatched.

My MaMa Pearl, who loved me with all of her heart, would leave the middle room door unlatched so I could slip undetected.

“Baby, is that you?”

“It’s me, MaMa. Thanks.”

“Goodnight.”

…… And that’s why I end each Podcast with, “We’ll see you soon. In the meantime, we’ll leave the screen door unlatched for you.

Join us for more:

AUDIO: You’ll enjoy stories  as you drive or work at the  Creekbank Audio Podcast.  

VIDEO:  Visit our YouTube Channel to join Curt on the Old House porch as he shares stories weekly.

FACEBOOK: Follow us at The Creek Facebook Page. Become a Facebook Follower and keep up with news from The Creek.

EMAIL: Subscribe to our weekly email.  We share a new story each week.

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Curt Iles