One of the interesting things in the storage shed at the Landsend site was a massive stack of doors of all sizes. You wouldn't think a camp would have that many doorways, and you would be right. These doors were leftovers, salvaged from a variety of places, in the thought that someday we might need 40 or 50 extra doors. We even gutted a number of houses in Sidney which were donated to the camp on the condition that they be torn down completely by a certain date. It was great to have so many spare doors, but it complicated my life as a wrangler because there were only a few doors that we really needed, and they tended to get lost in the stack.
The doors in question were the interior doors for Chilkat cabin. Every year it seemed that one or more of these doors had to be removed or replaced, depending on the leadership style of the girls’ counsellors in Chilkat. You see, every other cabin consisted of only one room, and therefore only one door. It was madness to consider removing this door, because it provided privacy for the campers and protection from the creepy crawlies that tend to live in the great outdoors and which would rather live in a nice warm cabin.
However, the interior doors of Chilkat cabin divided that cabin into about 5 bedrooms, and while some staff preferred having a private space where they were separate from the campers, others wanted an “open-concept” where they could hear and see all of their campers. So they would call me to either take a door out, or put a door in.
The challenge came when it was time to try to find one of these doors, because they were slightly different sizes, and they were mixed in the mound of other doors of varying usefulness in the storage shed. I suppose in hindsight it would seem simple to just set the Chilkat doors off to one side, but organization in the storage area was non-existent, and there always seemed to be someone wanting to re-organize everything, and nothing seemed to remain in the same place from year to year.
The end result was that there was this counsellor that I thought was kind of nice, and she wanted a door replaced in Chilkat. It had been off for a number of years, and I didn’t really know if the original door was still around, but I was determined to be helpful, and efficient, and most of all impressive. So I took measurements and set off to find a door that was the right size, or that could be forced to fit.
If you‘ve ever replaced a door, you will know that the hinges on any given door are not in a standard location, so after finding a door that was reasonably close to what I needed, my first challenge was that the hinges did not line up with the hinge spaces on the door frame. However, I was prepared for this and diligently proceeded to cut new notches in the door to match the frame. As I worked, the counsellor sat on her bed, reading a book and occasionally glancing at me with what I hoped was admiration.
Then I had to cut the door down a little bit, because it was a tiny bit too big for the door frame, but again I was prepared, and though it was a solid wood door, and therefore harder to cut through with the dull camp handsaw, I was able to get it done, get the hinges on, and proudly swing the door shut. My ingenuity had succeeded in replacing a door despite several problems.
Almost. Because when I had finally finished all of the alterations necessary and swung the door, it was to discover a two inch deadbolt sticking out of it, which I had not noticed before in my rush to be impressive, and which banged loudly on the door frame.
At this point the counsellor started laughing. Not tittering quietly, mind you. Full-throated, snorting hysterical laughter. And she didn’t stop. All the time I spent dismantling the dead-bolt, pulling the unit out of the door, and packing up my tools, she laughed. And laughed. And laughed. My attempt to be impressive had failed. But at least I was able to shut the door on her and muffle that darned laughter when I left.
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