SIMPLE OR ORNATE, DOORS MEANT TO BE INVITING

Unless you keep hinges oiled on the often-used doors they will eventually develop a squeak.

Like thumbprints, I imagine there are no two squeaks alike. My back door, the one most used, has developed a squeak. It might be its 150th rendition. If opened slowly it sounds exactly like the goldfinch that feed nearby. Not the goldfinch chatter, but the sweet, little low-toned songs they sing when their stomachs are full and they are sitting in the sunshine on the telephone wires.

I smile everytime I open the door slowly and wonder if by some strange osmosis the hinges have absorbed the goldfinch song.

Furthermore, I'm reluctant to oil the hinges. The sound is as appealing as a door harp or any other man-made musical contrivance. When the sound changes, as it inevitable will, I'll give the hinges a shot of Three-in-one. Who knows what the next sound will be? Maybe the raucous caws of the crows that have favored our neighborhood this winter.

The door to my front entrance, in contrast to the back, seems to say in a long drawn-out complaint, "Awww," as if something hurts. If it had physical feeling I wouldn't be helping it any by the almost daily kicks I give it. It doesn't latch easily when closing from the inside until I apply pressure at the bottom. This is so easily done by the sole of my shoe. No bending over or any such other maneuvers that may make me "Awww" too. And, anyway, it is my door.

I imagine the first doorway was the entrance to a cave, and the first door may have been an animal hide hung over the opening to keep out the cold winds, rain and snow.

Those of you who watched the "Little House on the Prairie" TV series may remember the beautiful quilt that was hung over the doorway of the crude little building until a real door could be constructed. When I first saw it, I could not readily name the pattern and checked out the quilt books from the library. I soon found that it was the Friendship pattern, also sometimes called the Maltese Cross. Nearly every quilt pattern has two or more names.

I thought that was such a clever point the set designer made. For doorways, from the supposed animal skin on up through history, are supposed to be designed or decorated so as to be friendly and inviting for anyone who may come calling.

I suppose a peak in the elaborate design of doorways was reached when the doors of Solomon's temple were put into place. I use the plural because we read in the Bible that the front entrance was of two doors, coming together.

A third century A.D. wall painting of the temple doors is in the synagogue of Dura Europos. These temple doors were of carved olive woods overlaid with pure gold. I wonder what kind of hinges they had and if they ever squeaked.

Another famous door is that of the Baptistery doors in Florence, Italy. Michelangelo said, "They are worthy to be the gates of Paradise," even though he didn't design them. They, too, are intricately carved with biblical scenes and covered with bronze.

My outside doors are carved too. Queenie, the bird dog made long parallel marks with sharp claws, begging to come in, to be fed, or claim some kind of attention. Black Silk, last of a long line of resident cats, left her scratches too, along with all those of her forebears. A deep dent resulted from a hard thrown baseball that went off course. A crack around the glass frame was formed by the tail end of a long ladder being brought into the house, but didn't quite make it around a complicated corner. The doors have all been covered with layers and layers of, not gold or bronze, but paint.

Despite nicks, scratches, cracks, squeaking, anyone's door to a happy home can be a sort of earthly door to paradise. Turn the knob on a cold, drizzly, foggy day, step inside and feel the cozy warmth, smell the subtle odors of decades of baking soaked into the walls, mixed with tinctures of Mr. Clean and lemon oil and that door can be an animal skin, a quilt or a sheath of pure gold for all you care, especially if it squeaks like a goldfinch song.

REJOICE!