”Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd.”
Today will be sunny and warm, fall warm in the high 70’s. Tonight will be in the 60’s, another fine night for sleeping. The morning is lovely. Everything is glistening in the sun. The birds are busy at the feeders. Nala is out. Henry has picked the best spot on the couch for his nap. Everything is right with our little world.
I miss the sounds of my childhood. The milkman used to carry his bottles of milk in a wire holder. The glass bottles clinked when he walked. I liked the clicking of the rotary phone when you dialed numbers. I miss the voice of the real operator, “Directory assistance. How may I help you?” I worked in Woolworth’s for a small while at a cash register. Every number I pressed made a sound, and the money drawer had a bell. I remember the sound of snow when the TV stations ended their broadcasts for the night. The rag man and the knife sharpening man called out from the street. When I was really young, the rag man had a horse and wagon. The horse’s hooves clopped on the street. The sounds of screen doors slamming came from almost every house on the block usually prefaced by a warning, “Don’t slam the door.” I used a film projector when I was first teaching. At the end of the film was the slapping sound from the end of the reel. The different coins had their own sounds when you fed them into the phones in booths. That was how the operator knew you were paying for the call. One of my favorite and most missed sounds was when my mother would call out from the back door, “Supper’s ready. Come in.”
The summer is fleeting. It seems to come and go now at breakneck speeds. Our last Monday ukulele concert on the Hyannis green was last night. We had played a summer full of music. The tourists are still here but in fewer numbers. The weekends will be full, the weekdays not is full. Soon enough, we will get back our Cape Cod back, primed and ready for my favorite season here, fall.
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August 27, 2024 at 4:15 pm
Hi Kat,
Today it’s still summer. We have some puffy clouds around and the high temperature will hit a cool 95°.
All of the sounds you mentioned bring back memories of things that are no longer around. I used to tell a story to our new instructors about the way things work in the world. I don’t tell it any longer because I have to explain to the young ones what is a telephone booth. 🙂 If they are younger than 35 they think I’m making this up.
The last time I was current flying one of our flight simulators, I was paired with a 25 year old copilot. He was amazed that I could fly an instrument let down procedure using only radio navigation aids and without GPS. When I asked him to time a one minute leg, he couldn’t do it because he doesn’t wear a watch. I hadn’t ever met a pilot, until then, who doesn’t wear a watch. This was about five or six years ago.
Time flies when you’re having fun and getting old. I like Albert Einstein’s explanation to President Roosevelt when he asked how relativity worked. Einstein said, “When you are sitting with a beautiful lady, time flies by. But, when sitting on a hot stove, time goes by very slowly. It’s all relative.
August 27, 2024 at 5:01 pm
Hi Bob,
It got to 78° today. It was a lovely, pleasant day. I have outside practice tonight so I hope it doesn’t cool down too fast.
One of the uke songs we play is Kodachrome, another thing which has disappeared. It too would be difficult to explain. I’d like a telephone booth as an ornament in my backyard.
People don’t remember phone numbers much anymore. Phones automatically dial now. Kids know far less now. They rely on their phones for the stuff we knew how to do. Telling analog time is one of those. Try mentioning quarter to the hour or ten past. Kids know 11:45 or 11:10, only digital.
That’s a great quote!
August 27, 2024 at 6:20 pm
Yes, we live in a very different world from the one in which we grew up. The Cessna Citation, that I flew and instructed in has a handle under the instrument panel which when pulled releases the landing gear up-locks for emergency gear extension. The label on the mounting bracket says, “Pull handle and turn 1/4 clockwise to lock”. Our youngest students have asked our instructors, “What’s clockwise mean”?
August 27, 2024 at 11:21 pm
They can read the digital clocks but don’t really understand time. They can no longer read cursive or even look up words in the dictionary. It is, indeed, a different world.