Remember the time that a car would drive up next to us at a stop light, and the music was so loud our hubcaps would drop off? There was a definite sense that “ bass was better”. The volume increased to teeth chattering levels somehow created a higher quality of life. The car’s occupant was blissfully unaware that he or she was off-putting to all of those around them, and most likely didn’t care. It’s that sense of “I’ll do what I want. You other people deal with it” that is now firmly embedded in our culture. So much for “it takes a village”.
The Ford Model T didn’t come with radios and “sound systems”, so cars with open spaces didn’t really affect us all that much. Nobody thought to put a Victrola in a moving vehicle because, well, the needle tended to bounce around a bit. The advent of “portable music” – cassettes and eight tracks led to a revolution. We needed music all the time to distract our already poor driving. And, of course, if we’re having non-stop music, we needed to improve the quality. Let’s put speakers all over the place. A couple of woofers the size of refrigerators can go in the back. Do we really need back seats? Now we put the top down, and voila, instant noise pollution. People for blocks can hear. Those are great. Those bass blasts cause more disruptions to the Earth’s surface than fracking. I actually (and I’m not making this up) saw, or rather more accurately heard, a guy on a motorcycle the other day with music blasting. We shared a red light. I gave him my best stare of disapproval, but it wasn’t working. Thinking about it, though, what a great idea! Put a sound system on something completely open and then ride it around spreading the joy. Of course he had on a helmet, so he at least had some degree of audio protection. The rest of us weren’t so lucky.
And what the heck has happened to the speaker phones? Weren’t those for a couple of folks in a business office? Sort of Skype without the pictures? I get that when you put a smart phone up to your ear, you dial twelve more numbers. Now we use the “speaker” option on our phones so everyone around us can hear. This in an era that is very concerned about privacy. Really? WE CAN HEAR YOU! Everywhere you go, you see and hear folks on their cells engaged in loud conversation. My mother used to say that my father and his business partner need not have bothered with Ma Bell. They both yelled into the phones to the extent they could just have opened the windows and heard each other fifty miles away. Then there are the people that wear those little ear thingies that look like Captain Kirk communicators. I once thought I’d made a real breakthrough with the guy across from me in the airport waiting area and we were really connecting as I nodded and responded appropriately to his conversational efforts. It was only when he turned his head and I saw the earpiece that I realized he was talking to someone else entirely. Some of us see ourselves as low level spies and hear one side of a conversation and imagine the rest. That may be another blog at some point. A CIA operative talking into an earpiece at O’Hare, and what the asset in Damascus on the other end is saying. (It’s possible I’ve read too much Daniel Silva of late.)
Who was it that initially thought the roaring of engines, either in cars or on motorcycles, brought a sense of power and prestige to the vehicle’s driver? Maybe it’s just me, but when I hear a motorcycle a half mile off, I tend to think “what a jerk”. If you need loud engine sounds to make your life rich and full, you have issues to discuss with your therapist. Let me tell you – the rest of us are largely unimpressed. When your car sounds like a tractor-trailer, most of us veer toward the view that “a competent mechanic could probably fix that for you.” A compelling need to announce that “you’re coming through” is seen by many, dare I say most including the psychiatric community, as at best an undesirable character trait and at worst, a cry for help. While I don’t want to put words in her mouth or pen, I suspect that somebody writing to Dear Abby that “I love the sounds of big revving motors and flared exhaust pipes, and my wife says I’m crazy” would get a response along the lines of “She’s totally right. You should be locked up until you seek professional help.”
We’re all surrounded by a bigger, louder world. Some of that is inevitable. Large trucks need to transport everything we need on a daily basis. Road construction is going to make noise. A highway near me is in the midst of a major expansion, and I’ll live with that. When it’s done and the blasting of ledge fades from memory, my life and those of many others will be improved. But loud noises just because someone gets a vicarious thrill is a menace. Even professional assassins put silencers on their weapons so they won’t disturb the rest of us. So, what’s with the fireworks? We used to hear them on July 4th, maybe the day before or after, sometimes on Labor Day. That was it. Now, we hear them all the time. Someone in fairly close proximity to my house has a love affair with them. We hear them almost every weekend. This crazy person is aided and abetted by four stores specializing in fireworks in our immediate area. Are loud booms really fun? In World War I it caused “shell shock”. Have we progressed to the point where a sound like the firing of heavy artillery is a form of entertainment? Have we not moved beyond the fourteen-year-old mentality that blowing things up is cool? A few years ago, a family in a local community had stacked fireworks for a yearly reunion on the back deck. Of course, it all went up in an early blast, blowing off the deck and the back of the house, seriously injuring a bunch of people. Is it really worth that? They couldn’t have as much fun just with hot dogs, hamburgers and potato salad like the rest of us? Ice cream couldn’t do it for you – you needed something to wake up the county?
Let’s return to a more civilized, quieter and gentler society. If we’re on our phones in public places, let’s whisper. Let’s all give a thumbs-up to the motorcyclist that whisks quietly by us. Better still, let’s put some serious research into engine mutes – we can all pretend we’re driving electric cars. On the Fourth of July, we’ll stand on our back decks or front porches with dripless candles and say “boom, boom”. Less noise is more, people. Who’s with me? I’m thinking . . . .
I'm Thinking...No! 