There's something about that sound I find comforting. Perhaps it goes back to my childhood. I grew up in the country, amid forests, pastures, cornfields and dairy farms. Most of the sounds were natural. Birds, squirrels, wind, farm animals. But a couple of miles from my house, a freight train rolled through an open meadow twice a day, and it's horn would bellow through the countryside like an old cow.
It's the kind of noise you grew use. It becomes a part of the scenery like a dilapidated barn you never notice until someone from out of town inquires about it. That's how it was with the train. Inevitably a visiting would ask, "Is there a train nearby?" I would pause and think, A train? And then, Yes, of course. The train.
Even though the United States doesn't have high speed rail, trains are a huge part of our history as well as our present. I wondered, this morning while walking the dog, how many other people out there like the sound of a train. Or what train sound they heard. (I lived in New York for a while and the rattle of the raised subway wasn't particularly endearing!)Let me know if you hear trains in your neighborhood and write a comment saying what you hear. Looking forward to it.
comments ( )