If we are blessed to live in a house we know the melody of our own door bell. In my teen years it was the buzz of the intercom in the lobby of our apartment building. Just thinking about it takes me back.
Here are some other sounds my heart memorized:
The click of numbers rotating on my flip alarm clock, counting down minutes until 7 am when suddenly the Pips moaned like a human whistle against Gladys Knight's Midnight Train to Georgia.No one but the radio station had a playlist back then, and there was a mysterious charm about not knowing what song was coming next.
The punch of the buttons on a cassette player, and in later years the mechanical robot-like auto reverse kicking-in on the boom box.
The slapping of a newspaper against the front door, delivered in the wee hours by the neighbor kid on his bike.
Dial tones. Once upon a time our phones were connected to the wall and sound was carried through wires strung across poles that reminded us to always think of our Lord who died on a wooden cross. In my aunt's houses in Idaho you could pick up a phone and might find yourself in the middle of someone else's conversation because they had whatn was called a party line that they shared with neighbors.
When we were kids and got to stay up really late, the tv left us with a musical salute, signing off for the night. It was an invitation for all sane people to turn the machine off and go to sleep. Nowadays we are trapped in never ending cycles of entertainment, with no limit, and if we sleep its because we are either disciplined of just plain exhausted.
If you made a phone call, and the call cost less than the quarter you put in the pay phone, your change would drop into a coin return, clanking on the way down.
When I was young the church bells rang. Every single day, at noon and midnight. I don't know if they still ring, since we moved to a place where churches tend to look the same, with no stained glass and no bell towers. I miss the church bells.
And I miss the trains weaving through the woods, growling along their steel rails, whistling around the bends and in narrow tunnels. Somewhere trains travel in peoples' back yards, just not mine anymore.
There was a sound at my Aunt Ruth's farm when the pump in the yard was being primed, ready to belch forth air and then a rush of water. It was a clangy screech, familiar in my head and hard for my fingers to find words for. Lambs bleating in the field at Aunt Mary's, the groan of the hay trolley moving large bales in Uncle Jim's hay barn, the honking of horns outside Uncle Parks' Ice House, indicating someone wanted a block of ice for their camping trip. Uncle Les had that old massive electronic organ in their front room. It seemed to take up half the room. Uncle Les' massive hands turned soft and gentle when he played old hymns. Glittery beige fabric on the front of the speakers rumbled when his shoeless feet slipped over the bass pedals. At the corner of the yard, on irrigation day, the big wheel that lifted the irrigation grate squealed and moaned until it warmed up in the turning, then the water rushed through and covered the lawn like syrup over a pancake.
My earliest days knew the sound of the heavy locking door on the Frigidaire. No one could sneak a nibble back then. There was a hefty exhale from the Ironrite as it released steam in the ironing of cotton sheets, dried on the line in the back yard, infused with the fresh scent of Idaho wind, wet before the ironing with Mom's Tupperware sprinkle bottle. I vaguely recall the frightening grumble of a diesel truck lifting its massive load of freshly harvested spuds at an angle, rising and rising until the whole ruddy crowd rolled against itself and deposited in the earthy dry sandy grave of an Idaho potato cellar.
In Pittsburgh, if the day was clear enough, you could hear the whistle at the Clairton Works Steel Mill during shift changes. As a young adult, when I worked in that mill, the horn was a blessed call to put down the long hot spatula of the Coke Batteries and head to our lockers. From the playground of my childhood came desperate calls from whining sirens, running up and down the musical scale, calling neighbor men and older boys to the Volunteer Fire Department. Even as a young child I remember pausing to offer a private silent prayer for whomever was in trouble.
In the little memory chambers of my mind I can hear the ding-ding of our car tires rolling over the hose at the service station. Out came a fella in a one piece jumper with his name embroidered over his heart. If we were having a good month Mom could ask him to fill it up, not even having to think about how much it would cost and if she had enough change in her purse. While the gasoline pumped into the tank the guy washed the windshield with a sponge and rubber at the end of a long stick, finishing it off with a swipe of the rag from his back pocket. When it was a "fill-er-up" day he checked the oil and the air in the tires. When I was a kid we pulled into the Service Station. Nowadays we pull up to a pump and fill it ourselves.
If I'm having trouble sleeping, I let my mind drift back to the wind in the trees that covered the flesh of Mother Earth where I grew up. I can hear acorns dropping to the ground, and the scurry of squirrels and chipmunks. Choruses of birds in all sizes playing their daily musical score. On hot summer days, walking out Gill Hall Road, I can hear, floating across the hillsides in Jefferson Township, the pleasant cacophony of voices, splashes, springing diving boards and Paul McCartney and the Wings playing My Love Does It Good on the PA system at Jefferson Swim Club. I miss so many of the sounds of my past; the comfort of my mother's voice, the music of the 60's and 70's floating from cars paused at stop lights, entertaining everyone because no one had air conditioning so their windows were rolled down. Kroger grocery store in Bill Green's Shopping Center played songs of the 50's over their PA system. That's where I learned to love Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Moon River and anything at all that passed through the lips of Nat King Cole.
And if I am in a mood to let tears rise, I recall the beautiful rhythmic creaking of my nursing rocker, the one with painted oak and the nice wide arms to hold my elbow as it cradled my feeding babies. The back and forth of that familiar caky pitch is a lullaby to my human state.
Tonight, as sleep pushes up into my eyelids, I can almost hear from our brand new colored TV with the groovy remote control that was attached with a cord the voice of Judy Garland as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, clicking her heels three times...
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
