ZOUNDS, WHAT SOUNDS!

It is a pity that today's culture is polluted with so much noise. Radios and TVs turned up, noisy machines to do trivial labors, even loud conversation between people seated around a small table, and much more serve to anesthetize us to concurrent, but more subtle sounds. Young people actually do not seem to abide silence and feel they must fill it with racket. As one who is approaching another decade, one appreciates hearing much more because that sense, I fear, is declining in me for purely aging reasons.

As I walk through a park or on nearby trails through a forest, I encounter people plugged into their iPods apparently preferring to hear electronic noise rather than the myriad songs of birds, wind rustling through the leaves, or water trickling through in a nearby creek. Workers show up for a construction job and the first thing they do is to turn on their radio tuned of course to the local rock station broadcasting uninterrupted noise. And of course its volume has to be increased so that the radio can be heard over the noise of the saws and hammers.

What ever happened to listening? Some sounds are meant to be heard of course as a warning: a car horn, a loud dinging bell when a train is coming, or an unfriendly rattlesnake. Other sounds are a part of every day life and have been recorded in our collective memory, their meanings clear: a baby's cry, an approaching thunder storm, an exaggerated sigh from your host when you have overstayed your welcome, or the drip of leaky faucet. Other sounds we associate with past experiences, either pleasant or not so.

Not many people can stand the screech of a fingernail accidentally scratching a blackboard, a memento from school days of yore. I personally do not like to hear the noise made by the bristles on a stiff wire brush being flexed. But getting back to the finger nail on the blackboard, I suppose this is becoming an antique sound owing to the fact that modern schools are equipped with other types of visual education materials. Other antique sounds might include the sound of a buggy whip, milk bottles clinking together, steam whistles, and the sharp whack of a wooden driver hitting a golf ball cleanly. Sadly, that latter sound has been replaced by a metallic clink.

The sounds of nature have always intrigued me. The avian world alone contains many, mostly pleasant sounds. From my travels in the North, I especially relish the lonely wail of Loons calling down a distant lake at twilight. The whole setting is mesmerizing, but nothing can compare to that wonderful sound. Speaking of the Great North Woods, what can compare with be awakened by the sweet song of a White-throated Sparrow singing outside your tent or cabin? The timbre or tonal quality of those notes are so distinctive, I can identify the bird even if I don't hear the whole song; just one note is all that I need. The Baltimore Oriole is another bird with such a distinctive timbre. Not all birds have such dulcet tones for me, but I associate their calls with pleasant memories, e.g., the squawking of Herring Gulls which used to accommodate me on my walks to work when I was living in Sweden or the unmelodious racket of Robins singing at dusk and after evokes memories of my childhood recalling the first nights going to bed in the spring with the windows open. And although they are so commonplace now, the calls of Canada Geese in flight always stir me.

Not all nature sounds come from birds. Who can not delight at the sound of a chorus of Spring Peepers, the tiny frogs that first herald the coming of spring? Have you ever heard the call of wolves in the North or in the Smokies? That sound will evoke stirring in your latent genes for sure. It reassures me that nature can survive if we only let it. Not all animal sounds come from wildlife. Pastoral sounds of cattle lowing, the whinny of a horse, or the soft bleats of sheep are sure to be associated with those of us with a more rural background.

Many of my favorite sounds are those that I associate with going to bed in weather warm enough to have the windows open. Chief among these from my boyhood is the far away whistle from a steam locomotive chugging through a distant valley on the edge of town where I grew up. I also cherish the sound of an approaching thunder storm on a summer evening. first heard far away and then the sounds come closer with louder and louder claps. Soon a gentle rainfall begins and may intensify- not a storm, but a gentle shower and then the sounds move off into the distance. The air is refreshed and life is rejuvenated.

Weather sounds are also encountered in travels and are readily identifiable. The squish-squish of the windshield wipers in the rain as the family car heads somewhere. I don't think the wipers make any noise today. The rain on a tin roof certainly is distinctive and a sound I pleasantly associate with crude lodgings I have weathered in the past. Or how about the crunch-crunch of your footsteps through frozen snow? We used to say that Midwestern summer nights were so hot you could hear the corn grow, but as attractive as that regional aphorism was, I don't think I actually ever heard it.

Some neat sounds are purely domestic, such as the sound of popping corn in a hot kettle from the kitchen especially when it gets to the frenzied stage. Or the sound of fries or onion rings dropped into the hot batter, the symphonic chorus of the myriad squeaks, rhythmic rumbles, and groans of an old-fashioned washing machine. Or the banging of hot water pipes when the weather turned cold. Or the swish-swish of the oscillating electric fan in the summer time. So many of these sounds are antique now. People pop corn in a microwave, not a kettle; they heat their fries up similarly from a bag of a frozen substitute, and their washing machine just hums!

I have my own personal library of sonic memories, probably not shared by most of you: a studio organ always evokes memories of Hodges Brothers Roller Rink, a scene of many hours on enjoyment from Junior High even into college, the rusty squeak of oar locks in a row boat from old trips to a nearby pond, the relentless pounding of the Atlantic surf, the warming up chords of a good, full symphony chorus, and so on. Why don't you turn off the noise and tune into the sounds? Make your own list. You might be surprised at the things you no longer hear.