As I sat on the front porch tonight listening to night sounds, I was reminded of the sounds I'd heard in Fort White since 1974 before we had air conditioner, when the screened windows were the only blockage between us and the outside world. Sounds of whip-or-wills, or chuck wills widows. Sounds of hawks, owls, and cicadas. Glorious sounds.
When Truett and I moved to Fort White, a train would rumble down the train tracks in the middle of the night headed west. For several years, the phone would ring in the middle of the night, and twenty minutes later, a train would be heard on the train tracks less than a mile away. We got used to that sound of the phone ringing in the middle of the night and the rumbling of the train twenty minutes later. But, eventually, the trains stopped running and the tracks were removed.
For years afterward, I would hear the phantom train running on the tracks and I would wake up and smile and miss that sound. Eventually, the chuck wills widows disappeared as well as the whip-or-wills. Eventually, the lightning bugs stopped blinking in the dark woods. Eventually, the cicadas were heard in the distant woods, not in my front yard. Eventually, my home in Fort White gave way to other sounds. Town sounds.
Pow! Pow! Pow! Sounds of the Fort White Gun Club across my driveway, across State Road 47. Sounds of monster trucks roaring through town with mufflers resounding in the night air, music blaring. Despicable sounds. Sounds that drown out the peacefulness that Truett and I moved to Fort White for. Sounds that we closed our widows to.
The only peaceful night sound I have now is Bee Boy with his dripping fountain. Thanks Bee Boy.
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