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you live.

Heading north, they're generally empty, move very fast, and clatter loudly. Heading south, they're filled. The noise and vibrations are enough to cause the huge windows in my apartment to shake in their frames. Whichever direction they're traveling, they're going through the downtown area. In order to try to avoid killing a car full of late night partiers, they begin blowing their horns long before reaching the crossings, and there are a lot of crossings main east-west thoroughfares downtown. That means the noise is almost constant.

I think they have a schedule for disturbing the peace and coordinate with the cable TV channels: the train-clattering, whistle-blowing ruckus usually starts just when the most important news bulletin starts, or when the hero of the compelling crime story is just about to reveal who the mass murderer is. Thank goodness for DVRs!

They also coordinate, I suspect, with the humongous and extremely noisy tractor-trailer rigs that deliver stuff to the distribution center 50-60 feet away. These deliveries are frequently made either late in the evening or very, very late at night, just about when the train traffic is at its heaviest. I think they've coordinated it so that if the train racket doesn't drown out the sound from the TV, the trucks most certainly will. Add to that sound of the street cleaning monster machines right outside your window going back and forth for what seems like hours and you've set up the perfect scenario for one sleep deprived woman, or two apartment buildings full of sleep deprived tenants!

My current environment seems peaceful by comparison. But talk about bumps in the night! Sometimes when it's snowy and icy, the deer that like to walk across my front and back decks miss a step and tumble off steps or slip on the ice, occasionally bumping against the outside of the house. I admit that scared me more than a little before I figured it out.

Now that spring has sprung, the tree frogs have been very noisy: it's evidently mating season. But that's nothing compared to when the locusts make an appearance. It's non-stop nerve-shattering noise all the time. And the only good thing about being very close to a fairly busy north-south highway is that the big trucks speed by fairly quickly. They're noisy, but at least it doesn't last long.

Is there really anyplace quiet anymore? I seriously doubt it. Even when I worked one summer in the high Sierra mountains, 10 miles from the nearest road, the bears appeared in the middle of the night to try to break into the feed bins in the corral. Talk about noisy! Actually, I never heard them, but I sure heard about it in the morning.

If you know of anywhere that's really quiet, let me know about it please. I'll check it out next time I feel a need to relocate. The only requirements: must have internet access and cable TV. Thanks for your help in saving what's left of my hearing!

Learn more about this author, Sondra Deuber.
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