If I Were a Bell I’d Be Ringing

I have a bell collection. But it wasn’t my idea. Somewhere along the line, my dad started giving me bells as gifts. I don’t remember ever expressing any particular affinity for bells and he never mentioned any special significance of them . . . that I remember anyway.

At some point, he gave me one for a birthday or Christmas and this was the beginning of a tradition of bells. IMG_20200324_202323954

Most of the bells were purchased from second-hand stores and thrift shops and when I received them, I simply found a place to stick them–sometimes on a shelf, but more often in the back of a closet or in a drawer. It wasn’t until we moved over four years ago, that I started to gather up my bell collection. Not until after my dad died did I finally buy a cabinet to display them.

The bells range in style and size from small glass crystal, to painted porcelain, to a metal double-bell, to several “call bells” like you would use to summon a desk clerk. One of the only bells that I know was purchased new, is a giant cow bell (I know, more cowbell!). It is likely the one referenced in this letter from April of 1996. It would have been a gift for my 27th birthday. Take Lots of Pictures--Bells Letter pg 1 4-1996

I remember that one was purchased new because my dad asked my mom to pick it up and he paid her back for it. She was annoyed that he saved what little money he had to buy me such a frivolous gift.

So, now I have these bells displayed in a room we rarely use. Some are pretty. Some have a nice ring to them. Some are old and a little beat up. But I still don’t know why he gave them to me in the first place.

Did I practice reciting Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Bells” when I had to memorize it for Mrs. Orr’s class in sixth grade? The collection started long before I spent decades teaching high school being ruled by bells. What was it with these bells?

I recently came across a series of pictures my dad took of me at my elementary school. One shows my kindergarten self peering at the camera from underneath the giant bell in the front of the school. Take Lots of Pictures--Pics Perry

I attended Perry Elementary School in Torrance which was opened in 1905 before Torrance was even founded in 1912 (Gnerre). It was closed soon after my fifth grade class moved on to middle school. The one-room school house was replaced with new construction in 1956 and a completely new school building was opened in 1964. One element from the original school was kept–the bell that was on display in front of the school. And when Perry was closed in 1981 and demolished in 1984, “The school’s final principal, Rob Scharf, arranged to have it donated to the Torrance Historical Society’s museum” (Gnerre).

I hadn’t thought about that bell for decades. Take Lots of Pictures--Bells Letter pg 2 4-1996 But, when I saw that picture, a memory of finding out what happened to the Perry bell surfaced. My dad researched where it ended up, so we could go see it. I wonder now if I was drawn to that bell at the time and my dad remembered that. Did we have some kind of meaningful conversation about that bell? Did bells ring of happier times for him?