You read it all the time in
pop music periodicals and advertising hype: Catch the Seattle Sound!; The
Bosstown Sound!; The Sound of Chicago; Area man drowns in Long Island Sound!
Even our fair city was the sound of the month in the early to mid 1990s, when
Rocket from the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Lucy's Fur Coat, the Rugburns, and
Jewel were among those signing major record deals.
The
Kensington Sound, however, has little to do with music.
Yesterday
I took a book out to the deck and decided to read in peace and quiet in the
warmth of the sun. Aaaahhh. But after ten minutes or so I found it increasingly
difficult to concentrate because of all the f@#*ing NOISE!!!
We
live atop one of Kensington's many beautiful canyons. Aldine Drive runs right
behind and below our house. Aldine Drive was put in as a fire emergency access
road in the 1920s and was never intended for regular traffic. Unfortunately
it's also a shortcut between Adams Ave. and Fairmount Ave., so thousands of
vehicles use it every day. Despite a sign prohibiting vehicles over four tons,
several regularly scheduled bus routes use Aldine. The average empty bus (and
it looks like they're always empty,) weighs about 12 tons. Those behemoths make
our deck rattle when they lumber by, the sounds of sneezing air brakes and
groaning engines shatter the tranquility. Several neighbors have complained to
the city that constant bus use of Aldine is causing portions of their back lots
to start collapsing into the canyon. So sometimes you can hear falling rocks.
Trying
to ignore the traffic noise, I was startled by a shrill Awk! Awk! Awk! I hate
crows. A murder of crows is like a friggin' gang of flying thugs taking over
your neighborhood. The crows in Kensington look like they weigh 15 pounds each
and would be more than happy to poke your eye out if you mess with them. 'Awk!
Awk! Awk!,' I hollered back. They laughed at me as only birds can.
Then
I heard one of the primary ingredients of The Kensington Sound: the slow, low
rumbling thwok-thwok-thwok getting louder as the Doppler effect shifts the
pitch and our dog starts barking at the sky. Ah, police helicopters...250 feet
overhead. Sometimes there are two or three at a time, all seeking a scofflaw
hiding in a canyon nearby. Sometimes I think we're living a scene from Blue
Thunder, the film that did for choppers what Jaws did for sharks.
I
mentioned my dog earlier. In Kensington everyone has at least one dog.
Unfortunately, most of the dogs are little ankle-biters who all go off whenever
someone has the audacity to walk down the street. 'Yip! Yip! Yip!'
'Owr-owr-owr!' The tiniest of them go, 'Arf-arf-arf!' Some of these critters like to sing along whenever they hear
a siren. This being Kensington, we hear a lot of singing hounds, and coyotes,
too.
After
a while, though, I was able to tune out the buses, the falling rocks, the
crows, the helicopters, dogs and coyotes, only to be brought back to reality by
one of the other main ingredients of the Sound of Kensington, the lawn
mower/leaf blower/chain saw. This being Kensington, everyone has their own
gardener. There seems to be a mower or blower running from dawn to dusk, every
day!
Kensington
is popular with contractors, too. Hardly an hour goes by without the sound of
table saws, tile cutters, nail guns, and jack hammers helping to turn another
$800,000 house into an $815,000 house that will spend eight months on the
market.
And
then there's the noise that sounds like a jet engine being tested, sometimes
for 20-30 minutes. I think that at MCAS Miramar, they're probably doing just
that. We lived in Tierrasanta for 15 years. When we moved to Kensington, I
thought, 'Thanks God I don't have to hear those damned jets from Miramar
anymore!'
So,
rather than trying to read and relax on the deck, I went into the house and
cranked up the sound on the TV and watched Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
Truth
be known, we love living in the midst of The Kensington Sound.
I
think the worst noise of any city is the roaring silence that happens when the
power goes out.