Another Day in the Country: Hear that whistle blow
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
When our children are little we begin educating them about sounds. "What does the dog say?" we ask. And then answer our own question, "Bow-wow." "What does the cow say?" Our little ones wait expectantly for this gem of wisdom, "Moo-moooo." We smile. This lesson is going well.
"What does the train say." And then we make the sound, "Whoooo-whooo." Everyone knows what the train sounds like when it comes rumbling down the track and whistles at the crossing. Or do you?
We rhapsodize about the sound of the train calling to us as it crisscrosses the United States. We write songs about the sound of the train and our feelings of wanderlust and nostalgia the whistling evokes.
We live rather intimately with trains in Ramona. They whiz past in the night, chug carefully by each other on our side track, and clog our entrance and exit from town. They call to us incessantly since there are so many train crossings within ear shot.
Newcomers into town will comment about the train. "You certainly have a lot of trains coming through, don't you?" they'll say trying to be diplomatic.
Guests at our bed and breakfast interject the story about the train they swore was coming right through their bedroom with stories about dogs barking all night and keeping them awake. I like the train stories best!
I've always liked to hear the train whistle, myself, although sometimes we have an engineer who gets a little carried away at the crossings and does constant toots in the middle of the night for a mile or two. For awhile we had someone who did whistles that sounded like a code and then someone said, "Oh, that's my brother. He's saying hello."
And then something happened. The sound of the train whistle changed. I was washing dishes in the kitchen and it sounded like someone was honking outside our front door. "Is someone needing us to come out?" I asked my sister. "What's with the honking?" And then I realized, it was the train!
"You've got to be kidding," I fumed. "Little variations on train whistles I can take but a train sounding like a semi-truck is the last straw! I'm protesting."
You know what it's like in the summer when the windows are open and all the sounds are closer. Well, waking up to the sound of a semi in the bedroom is not pleasant. The wail of the whistle I can take, it's nostalgic. The occasional code-talker I can handle, it's sweet. The over zealous, bored, whistle I can tolerate on occasion because we don't want him going to sleep at the wheel or I can pray he'll be transferred to Amtrack. But changing the whistles to honking is disgusting — it's un-American!
My mother has suffered through decades of change and every once in awhile when things are completely overwhelming she'll say, "This is too much. Everything is so different. I think I just need to get off the planet."
She's put up with a microwave that insists on talking to her about dates and times on a computer read-out, an oven that she has to push buttons in a certain sequence or it won't work, and a car that scolds you if you don't put on your seat belt. And now the trains are turning into trucks.
It's another day in the country where the cycles of life are in continual flux. I've adjusted pretty well, so far, but now I'm begging, "Please, let the train whistles sound the same!"
