Monday Morning Question.....

Sometimes I Think
Subject: Monday Morning Question
Author: fisherkristina
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Monday Morning Question:

Describe a "sound" from your childhood.  What was it?  When did you hear it?  What does it bring to mind?

 

Trains! Because of this I love trains.......there was a train yard maybe less than a half m from the house I lived in from 4 years of age to 10. Back then we didn't have central air conditioning or even window units for that matter so in warm weather we slept with the windows wide open and all night long I would hear the trains clicking away on the tracks and the sound of the brakes as they came to a stop in the train yard. It has a unique sound.....almost like a high pitch of a tin whistle in a few different octaves. To this day I still love that sound......warm fuzzy feelings of being a carefree child playing hide and seek with all the neighborhood children as the Moms sat on the front stoops every night going over their days and it was safe to play well after the street lights came on.

The next house we owned had railroad tracks less than two blocks away, and even though trains never stopped there with their squeaky brakes I could hear the clackety clack of the trains rush by. That is also where I spent the majority of my TWEEN years, exploring viaducts, pulling apart Chinese puzzle sticks and cat tails and looking for tadpoles in the little creaks that ran through between the freight train tracks and the passenger train tracks. TOO many times we had very close calls with those trains while trying to beat them through the concrete tunnels or over passes.

It was our secret meeting places where we all smoked our cigarettes and wrote our names inside of hearts with who ever our crushes were at the time. Some times we were chased after by the private security guys or the homeless people who road the rails. I remember we once came across a rather large pot field and thought we would claim it as our own.....we did until the cops found it and burnt it to the ground. We weren't half afraid of the cops as we were if we ever were caught by the original pot field owner.

So its the sound of the trains brakes and train whistles and the clackety clack that will forever be tied to the sounds of my youth. Thanks Kristina for bringing it all back to me.........happy place for sure!