The best thing about my mother-in-law Ruby’s farmhouse is her old-fashioned screen door. It is made of wood, has a spring attached, locks with a hook-and-eye latch, and closes with a loud whap.

    I like to sit on her back porch and listen to the door whap. Ruby knows when she has a good thing. A neighbor once suggested she put a rubber stop on the door so it wouldn’t whap, and Ruby glared at him.

    For years we lived in rented homes, then bought our own home when we moved back here. The man who inspected it made out a list of things we needed to tend to — electrical matters, termites, and other minor concerns. “Those can wait,” I told my wife. “What this house needs is an old-fashioned screen door.”

    A month later I ran into Terry Bolton while I was at the hardware store buying paint for my porch swing. Terry is the man in our town you call when you need something built. I’d been away from home nearly twenty years. The last time I saw Terry he was an eighth-grader delivering newspapers. Now he is an artisan, a craftsman of the old school, who is to wood what Rembrandt was to paint. My parents live in a century-old house. The windows are curved, built with the kind of wood you can’t find anymore. When the windows needed replacing, carpenter after carpenter recommended tearing them out and starting from scratch with vinyl windows, which to my parents was a desecration, akin to spitting on a grave. They called Terry, who came and did in one month what four other carpenters said would take six months to do.

    When I saw Terry at the hardware store I asked him if he could put in a screen door for me, the kind that whaps when you close it.

    “The kind your grandpa used to have?” he asked.

    “That’s the one,” I told him. Made from big, thick pieces of wood. None of that skinny wood that breaks apart the first time you slam it.

    “You want a spring on it?” he asked.

    I told him I most certainly did, an honest-to-goodness spring, the kind that pulls tight and fastens to a little hook and catches your leg hair if you’re not careful.

    “I know just the kind you mean,” he said.

    A few weeks later I was eating breakfast at the Sunshine Cafe. Terry was there, in the next booth over, enjoying biscuits and gravy.

    “I found your door,” he told me. “It’s big and thick and won’t fall apart the first time you slam it. Tom Helton has it up at the Home Lumber. I need to come by and measure your door. Will you be home today?”

    He gasped for breath. In all the years I’ve known Terry, that was the most I’d ever heard him speak at one time.

    He came by and looked things over, measured up, down, and across while smoking a cigar. Ordinarily I don’t like people smoking on my porch, but I didn’t say anything. Having a cigar in his mouth helps Terry think and I wanted his mind keen. A week later the phone rang; it was Terry wanting to know if he could come and hang the door.

    It took him four hours. He had to build a frame for the door. He cut the door to fit and chiseled out slots for the hinges. Slow, careful work. Filled in the nail holes and sanded the door. Attached the spring and screwed in the hook and eye. The door stuck a little, so he took it back down and planed the edge. Hung it back up, perfect fit. Then Terry came in, hat in hand, sat at the dining room table, toted up the bill with a nubby pencil, and presented it to me. Two hundred dollars for a thick wood door that whaps shut and four hours’ labor. A true bargain.

    I’ve bought a lot of things in my life, but I can’t think of one material possession that has brought me more joy than our old-fashioned wood screen door. I sit out on the porch swing on a summer evening, Joan brings me a glass of iced tea, whap goes the door, and inwardly I exult. Our boys and various neighborhood children run in and out, whap goes the door, and my heart swells with joy. It is a glorious sound, a symphony of wood.

Too many people work only for money — a common and foolish mistake.

    It offers an honest noise, our screen door. The sound of wood on wood, all natural. Lot of fake noise these days. I know a lady who has a machine by her bed that makes cricket noise. It cost her ninety-nine dollars. I feel sorry for people who have to pay ninety-nine dollars to hear a comforting sound. For a hundred more dollars, they could have had an old-fashioned screen door.

    Over the years I’d hung a few screen doors on my own. I was going to hang this one, then got to thinking how I owe it to my town to keep good craftsmen in business. Self-sufficiency is fine, but Terry has a family to feed. He needs the money and we need him. For centuries we’ve subsidized artists and musicians in recogmtion of their value to a community. We ought to make no less a provision for our craftsmen. That’s why I hired Terry to do something I could have done myself. That, and because my wife has seen the doors I’ve hung and made me hire it done this time.

    In my bedroom sits a Shaker rocker. I happened upon it years ago in an antique shop in southern Indiana. It was made in Mount Lebanon, New York, around 1875. How it ended up in southern Indiana is a mystery, but there it was in all its simple glory. A man named Robert Wagan built it. He was a carpenter who joined the Shakers in his adult years, seeking to imbue his life’s work with meaning. It wasn’t enough for Robert Wagan to build chairs; he wanted to build chairs to the glory of God. Thomas Merton once observed, “The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it.” Robert Wagan believed that.

    Terry hung our door on a Monday — my day off. I sat on the porch swing and watched. It was raining, but the porch is covered and we were dry and content. He charges by the job, not the hour, so he worked slowly, enjoying himself. When the door was hung, he stood back to admire his work, smiling. He also smiled when I paid him, though not as big. I thought how blessed he is to have a job that brings such joy.

    Too many people work only for money — a common and foolish mistake. What makes our life’s work meaningful is to do it for reasons other than money. After Robert Wagan died, the Shakers started mass-producing chairs to make money. While the chairs were wonderfully crafted, it began their downfall. They needed a better reason to make chairs than money. There are many fine motives for building a chair, but becoming rich is not one of them.

    The Shakers had the right idea when they were building chairs for angels to sit on.

 

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From the book For Everything a Season, by Philip Gulley. © 1999 by Multnomah Pub., used by permission.

Title: "A Time to Build"
Author: Philip Gulley
Publication Date: January 30, 2003