A QUESTION OF DOORBELLS
Before moving to Martha’s Vineyard in May of 2000, doorbells were a topic I don’t believe I had ever thought about. In fact the only time I can say I consciously considered the matter was the year my friend Dickie received, as a gift from his children, an electronic doorbell that played eight different tunes. Everything from “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” to “Of All The Girls I’ve Loved Before.” Dickie was thrilled (as you can well imagine) especially since he worked nights and generally slept during the doorbell ringing part of the day. But I digress.
After moving to the Island it took several months before the subject of doorbells came up. For ‘wash-a-shores’ the process of embedment (recently coined word) into the community is a gradual process. One doesn’t have guests or go ‘calling’ right off the bat. No, I’d say it was a good six months before I started to think about doorbells. And it was another six months before I realized that no one on the Island had a doorbell and guests frequently had bloody knuckles and hoarse voices from banging and yelling at my door.
When I asked another new comer (she’s only been here for seventy years) why no one had them she said, “Don’t need them. We don’t lock our doors.”
Coming from the real world this seemed radical and dangerous to me but I decided when in Rome. Guests started to open the door and trill ‘yoo hoo’ and the UPS guy would put packages inside on rainy days. All very civilized. Until one day a valuable clock went missing. Back to injured, vocally challenged guests.
Last summer I became aquainted with an even newer ‘wash-a-shore’. She had just built a home off Deacon Vincent Way. She’s the type of gal who is very thorough. She had planned this construction for years and had thought of everything so when I noticed she had no doorbell I had to ask. She looked at me as if I had just crawled out from under a rock, blinking into the sun. “They don’t put doorbells on houses here,” she said. “Why not?” I asked. “I don’t know. That’s what the builder said.” Case, apparently, closed.
Last December I threw a Christmas party for some of my new friends. Wine was consumed and it got a little noisy. On the way to the powder room, one of my guests heard a pounding on the front door and opened it to find a late comer who complained she had been knocking for ten minutes. Tradition or not, I knew something had to be done.
A trek to the hardware store the next day found me the proud owner of a battery run doorbell. Easily assembled and installed I waited for my first arrival. About a week later the UPS guy knocked on the door and left a package on the porch. He wasn’t the only one. It seems most people on this Island don’t expect to see a doorbell so they don’t look for one. Eventually the battery went dead and I didn’t even know it until my friend Shirley came over one day and asked why my doorbell didn’t work. So I put in new batteries and hoped for the best. Now that spring is almost here and people are out and about more I expect maybe people will start to use my bell. Maybe even start a trend.
One morning the fog rolled in as it does only in Katama. The kind of dense fog that leaves streaks of condensed salt water on your windows. About nine am the doorbell rang. It was Sunday. No deliveries, nor was I expecting anyone. It rang about four times before I reached the door. Impatient bugger, I thought. I opened the door to an empty deck. As I stood there; alone; it rang again. The moisture from the salty air must have caused some kind of short circuit.
The doorbell is now sitting on my kitchen counter. Every once in a while I push the button, just to hear it ring.
