SOUNDING THE HORNS

Something happens today that hasn't happened for years:  All the trains barreling through town are blowing their horns.

Years ago the wise elders of the town outlawed train horns and whistles when coming through the crossings.  They claimed it bothered the people who lived near the tracks.  I live practically on the tracks, right next to them, and I have always found the sound of the train horns, even during the dead of night, to be comforting.  My attitude is if you do not like the sound of the train whistles, don't live near the train tracks.

Given this directive, the screeching blast of the train whistle this morning around 8:00 a.m. jolts me, shocks me, even.  "Oh, no," I think, "some poor engineer is gonna hear about this when a local asshole complains."

Then a little while later, another train comes through blowing its horn, and then another a little while later.

I don't know if people are working on the tracks or if there is a problem with the crossings, but I am totally psyched that the trains are making noise again.  Every time one blasts its warning coming through town, it makes me doubly excited, first for the love of the sound, and second for the ire of the smarmy people it must annoy, people who have already called the police and the MBTA and the local newspaper to bitch about it.

I have to leave the house late morning, so I don't know how it all resolves itself, but, by the time I get home in the evening, the train horns have once again been silenced.  That's too bad.  I used to doze fitfully until the 12:04 a.m. train flew through, tooting its horn as it zoomed through the dangerous intersection at the end of my short street.  After that sound, I could always fall into a deep sleep.

I had been looking forward to that moment tonight, but I guess the past isn't going to repeat itself, after all.  Instead of the comforting sound of the trains, some asshole in my tiny neighborhood is lighting off M-80's intermittently, which is not comforting.  Actually, it's annoying.  But, unlike the train haters, I'll just grin and bear it for a short while.