Perhaps the boss sang it best when he crooned “…screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways. Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays”. That simple lyric, penned by Bruce and perfected by local musician Hayward Williams is so simple, yet remarkably poignant. The line is effective because it paints a picture that nearly everyone can see and feel. Yes, the vision of a woman playfully dancing is easy enough to imagine, and the radio playing softly in the background is something I swear I can hear even now. But what conveys the scene so profoundly is the screen door. Whether it’s slamming or gently drawing to a close, it’s an unmistakable image, and a sound that just about everyone finds familiar and strangely comforting.
Screen doors are found everywhere. On the back doors of Lake Forest mansions, and the front doors of Lake Geneva cottages. I’ve owned several screen doors, and my particular favorites are old white or green painted or stained wooded varieties that have long given up the desire for aesthetic perfection. I find that the screen door itself is wildly under appreciated, and under utilized as a method of imparting charm to just about any cottage doorway. Old wooden doors with dented aluminum screens have been far too quickly torn off and replaced by shiny white doors with full bodied windows and interchangeable screens. These new doors are marketed as storm doors, and therefore, are not screen doors in my book. In order to be a screen door, the door must be made of wood, and any wood door offering a combination storm/screen need not apply for screen door membership. Sorry, but someone has to enforce the imaginary rules.
I turned a reviled sun room into a screened porch this summer, and when I removed the existing exterior door that led out to a shady deck, I didn’t spend much time debating what type of door I would use to fill the void. I marched (fine, I drove) down to Lowes, and walked down an aisle filled with doors. White doors with their fancy hinges and new fangled movable windows and screen sections. Expensive doors with full windows and interchangeable screen panels. Ornamental doors with all sorts of unnecessary brass and gold detailing, one more gaudy than the next. For all their white shiny prowess, they couldn’t impress me, let alone deter me from the object of my screened affection. I made my way through that aisle, and settled upon a homely group of simple pine doors. No cross buck design, no shiny gold ornamentation. Just a simple pine frame with one horizontal board capable of supporting some hardware, and a screened interior. It was the cheapest door in the aisle, and it was also the best, and that very day, it was mine.
Sure my kids kicked the screen out of the door a couple weeks later, but that’s not the point. The door, in all of its simplistic, twenty-nine dollar glory, brought a classic touch of cottage living to my new screened porch, and I was much appreciative. Think about it for a bit. When Larry David decided that Kramer needed to impart a touch of Americana to his New York apartment, what did he do? He didn’t direct Kramer to go out and find a sparkling white resin and fiberglass door, did he? No he most certainly did not. Kramer tore an old wooden screen door off a friends house, and gave it a new home, knowing that he’d find the country vibe that he so badly desired.
The problem with screened doors it that not only are all doors not created equal, not all screen doors are capable of delivering the same level of nostalgic magic. It turns out, the location of your screen door is as important as the material that it’s made out of. A classic wood screened door leading into a city apartment might seem quaint, but is it really? That same screen door, afixed to the doorway of your Lake Geneva cottage would be a much better idea. Whether you prefer the slam of the door, or the gentle smack it’s exercise is finished and it collides with the door stop, a simple adjustment of the tightly coiled metal spring will provide you with your audio of choice. Kids running in and out, to and from the lake, wet suits and sandy feet, always passing through that friendly old screen door. Sounds like a great weekend to me.
Consider the humble screen door, and rejoice in both its practical and transformative abilities. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised C.S. Lewis didn’t have those kids walk through a magical screen door instead of that dusty old wardrobe. If you’re a fan of the old screen door like I am, it’s probably not a good idea to go slap one on the front door of your Northbrook manse, because to be frank, that’d be like casting a fishing pole onto your suburban front lawn. Some things are best left to the lake, and thankfully, there are plenty of Lake Geneva cottages just dying for someone to give their old screen door a much deserved work out.