News from Town
Snow! 6” of the sound-stifling stuff adorned the sacred ground of Lancaster City. I was in dog heaven with Rue (pictured above). Then the rain came.
We have a couple of new readers. Please welcome Emmalyn and Andrew 👏🏼
After two bouts of illness (Nov. and Jan.), I’m back in the writer’s chair to meet my goal of publishing at least one T.C. and one permeablity newsletter a month along with the occasional Side Ways column at lancasteronline, Sunday Living section.
Thanks for reading and subscribing.
“Outen” the Country
I DJ’d a wedding reception recently at a Lancaster County farm venue.
Situated above a sizable creek and nestled within rolling hills, an historic brick church with a graveyard sat across the road.The barn and faux silos were newly constructed. No sounds or smells of domestic animals were detected.
The contract I signed, a phone call from the owner, and a few sheepish reminders from manager Kaityln throughout the evening made it clear:
Keep the bass down.
Neighbors have complained.
“What neighbors?” I asked Kaitlyn casting a glance toward the departed souls in the churchyard.
She rolled her eyes. “There are houses on that ridge, and there’s one neighbor who…..”
In a town, such sounds are not necessarily commonplace, but they are part of the tapestry of life.
Come on Feel the Noise
In the fall of ‘22 I turned our back yard into Party Central and blasted over three hours of music while about 60 people mingled. I had informed the neighbors ahead of time and invited them to come hang out. Some did.
Thanks to the density of the row houses the sound didn’t travel far, and most residents, if they noticed the party at all, probably went back indoors to watch TV.
Understandably, noise is one of the reasons folk either leave town or never settle there in the first place.
In my setting, some sounds are reassuring:
The playful voices of school kids’ lining up outside The North Museum.
The distant whistle of the Amtrak train pulling in from Philadelphia.
The roar of Barnstormer fans at the baseball stadium.
The practice of musical instruments and random pedestrian chit-chat.
Others are jarring:
The obscenely loud sirens of fire engines and ambulances.
The exhaust pipes of mopeds, Harleys, and tuner cars.
The clang of dumpsters and jack hammers.
I’m really going to miss the snow because it so nicely mutes those sharper intrusions.
And how can I neglect the sub-woofers on College Avenue? There’s that bass again. Sometimes me likes; sometimes me don’ts.
Town sounds, the whole charcuterie board of them, have gotten into my system. They invigorate and situate me.
Whoot, Me?
The sounds of people culture are what towns are known for, but even nature elbows her way up to the front of the chorus with
Multitudinous songs of native and migrating birds.
Tree limbs whipping in the wind.
Canines woofing it up at the dog park.
Rain. Glorious rain.
Two years ago a Great Horned Owl perched high up in a hardwood tree across the street, serenading us in the late evenings. I once watched a red fox strut proudly and adroitly along a ridge in Buchanan Park. He was silent; my quickening breaths were not.
Shhh…
And then there’s the quiet.
Lancaster, I daresay, can be downright Arcadian, more serene than some outlying areas where one can’t escape the continual drone of tires on routes 30, 283, or any number of busy two lane roads and congested interchanges.
Many evenings I step out into our back garden on College Avenue. I look up at the stars and marvel at them, King David style.1
Then I consider the earth and that I’m surrounded by 60,000 dear souls, my city lying silent as a country hamlet.
Speaking of sounds, forward to 4:20 to hear one of my favorite guitar solos. And, yes, the cover art is veeerrry 1986.
From Psalm 8.
When I consider your heavens,
The things even your fingers have done,
The moon and the stars which you have set in place,
I wonder: “What are humans that you remember us?
And the son of man that you care for, seek, and watch over him?”
-taken from Andy Patton’s Substack, The Darkling Psalter. In this project he pairs a psalm rendition with a poem of his own. Highly recommended!