remembered by Marjorie Fenn, letter carrier (retired), 1979–2011
Last updated: March 2012 · You are visitor number 004117
For 32 years I carried the mail on Route 9 — 412 houses, two trailer parks, a church office, and the feed store. You don't ring most doorbells. You ring for a package that won't fit the box, for a signature, or for a dog that's gotten out and needs to be told about. So you don't ring many. But you remember every one you did.
Here they are, in route order. The ratings are mine and they're final. If your doorbell is on here, I hope you don't mind. If you think I've rated it wrong, you're welcome to tell me, and I'll think about it, and I'll probably leave it.
Each bell has a button. You can press it. I made the sounds myself on the computer my grandson set up, from memory, so they're close but they're not exact. Nothing is exact from memory. That's all right.
| # | The house | The bell | Rating | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | the blue house with the ramp | ding-dong, two notes, the low one held a long time | ★★★★★ | The Okafors. A glass of water on the porch rail every August, with a saucer on top against the bugs. When he got the chair they built the ramp themselves, one Saturday, and the next Monday they asked me to try it. I didn't need to. I tried it. It was a very good ramp. | |
| 2 | the Pruitt place, with the gnome | a buzzer | ★★☆☆☆ | A buzzer is not a doorbell. A buzzer is an opinion. Nice people, though. Their boy Dale worked at an office in town and was Employee of the Month there for longer than anyone thought possible. His mother told me every month. | |
| 3 | the yellow duplex, left side | the first four notes of the church-clock tune, then it gave up | ★★★★☆ | Mrs. Albescu pressed it herself when she saw me coming up the walk, so I'd have music. Every day for nine years. The right side of the duplex had no bell at all and never seemed to mind. | |
| 4 | the farmhouse at the end of Coyle Road | a real brass bell on a rope | ★★★★★ | You had to pull it like you were starting a boat. The cows looked up. The house took a while. It was worth the walk out there every time, and it was a long walk. | |
| 5 | the six new houses on Linden | all the same bell, all six | ★★☆☆☆ | A sound like a microwave being polite. I could never tell which house had answered. Two of them couldn't either. | |
| 6 | the church office | played a little tune, changed with the seasons | ★★★★☆ | Pastor Iris set the tune herself. Something bright in spring, something slow in Advent. In August she let the children pick and for one month it was the ice cream truck, near enough. | |
| 7 | the man who painted his door red every spring | no bell — a knocker, iron | ★★★☆☆ | He said a knock is more honest. I don't know what a dishonest doorbell would be. He never explained and I never asked and we got along fine for twenty years. | |
| 8 | the feed store | a cowbell hung on the door | ★★★★★ | The same cowbell from 1979 to 2011. I asked once where it came from and Lew said "a cow," and that was the whole story, and it was enough. |
A man at the Complaints Department on this website filed a complaint about my rating of buzzers (No. 3,412: "harsh; accurate"). He has a point about harsh. I've left it.
There are houses I delivered to six days a week for thirty-two years and never once rang. I know their mailboxes better than I know some people.
The green mailbox shaped like a fish. The flag was the tail.
The box stenciled BEWARE OF CAT. I never saw a cat. I believed it.
The one that said THE HENDERSONS for nineteen years after the Hendersons.
The box on Orchard with a jar of mints in it, labeled MAIL CARRIER ONLY. I took one a day. Not two.
The house with the porch light on, always, even at noon. Someone was waiting for somebody. I hope they came.
The tall gray house where the curtain moved every time. We waved for eleven years without seeing each other.
I wonder sometimes what their bells sounded like. I don't think I'd want to know. Some things are better as mailboxes.
On my last day I rang a doorbell on purpose, for no package and no signature. That one gets its own page.
Tell me about your doorbell. What it sounds like, who rings it, whether it works. If you have a knocker, tell me that too; I'll try to be fair.
Other good doors on this website: Teo's kitchen, where I'm told the door is always open and there's usually a dish on the side. And the hallway of doors somebody made, which I don't fully understand but I've walked through twice.