The Town Wail

Saying of the Day:
Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy but socially dead.




Blog of the day:
The Town Wail

USA Today ran an article yesterday about the return of noisy town sirens...WEll, back "in our time"...in small towns accross America we had some sirens that were usually mounted somewhere on the court house, or the nearby fire department..
and these were heard regularly on various occasions..often at night when one was asleep or drifting off to dreamland...The 10 Pm Curfew horn was one of them..
There has been a debate about the tradition of the use of these noisy, wailing sirens in small townas accross America, based on the noise they create..some people like them 'cause they contimute tradition, and others feel they are noisy and
archaic, and should be eliminated.
As I said, one signal was for the "10 o'clock curfew" alert, for folks who were underage, and that they had like 15 minutes to get back home after the wailing of the siren sounded.
In this era of cel phones, and IPhones, etc.. most kids already know when it's time to go home(if their parents have rules for them)...
The sirens in these towns, including one in my Ohio "home town" had long been used. Since I havent lived there for years, I dont know whether the sirens still go off or not..
but I do know(and i've blogged about this before) that they created terror in my heart as a young teen in the "cold war" era...
You see there were different "lengths and warblings"..one meant a "fire"...another the curfew, and yet another meant "take cover..nuclear war eminant.."
It was this last one that scared the holy SH** out of me, as I layed there in bed only about a block from these sirens..one could never tell what the signal was till the thing got cranked up in motion, and then we had to listen for a straight blast,
an undilating sound, etc..whatever the codes were(and Ive forgotten what they are...)but I think the straigh blast without warbling meant somesort of Civil Defense War warning..
BUT.. for about 15 to 20 seconds one got the be jeebers scared out of them till we firgured out what they were...
IS it a good idea for small towns to restore their sirens, or to continue them if they have them?
Traditionalists say yes..but this blogger says no! What's your take?

Steveo

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