A night and day of sounds
Yesterday was very long, and full of odd sounds. I went to bed Thursday night and thought I'd just barely been asleep when I was awakened by fire trucks. I live between two of the town's fire stations so I often hear fire trucks go by on the nearby major streets; big diesel engines, hooting horns and sirens. I normally don't pay much attention during the day, but at night I do listen to hear if they are coming anywhere near. That night they seemed to be coming close but not very close. I didn't really notice that the noise shut off while they were near. Then immediately a train passed by, and my mind was distracted. I usually wouldn't wake up for the trains at night using their horns through several nearby crossings. I went back to sleep and some time before dawn a helicopter flew directly over my house. Having news helicopters fly nearby isn't rare with the freeway a couple miles away and a major intersection within walking distance. Having one fly straight over my house was odd especially in the dark. I think now it was a medevac helicopter, since it was very loud, and probably larger than the usual news helicopter. I knew at the time it was in all likelihood related to the earlier sirens. I think I heard a second helicopter farther away, with its rotor noise clashing with the rhythm of the first. I went back to sleep thinking I'd better check about it in the morning. The last thing that night was the sound of chimes sounding for 6:00 a.m. I don't know exactly where the chimes came from, but I doubt I was the only one to be disgusted with being woken up at that time. (I think maybe they are at the high school. Maybe they sounded yesterday at 6:00 a.m. as a prank?) I didn't want to get up, but knew I wasn't going to sleep anymore. So I got up and checked the local news on the net. The story with a video was right at the top of the page. The fire trucks had gone by a little after 2:00. The reporter gave the intersection and a still photo from a helicopter showed the scene. A quick look at the street view on Google maps and I knew exactly where the fire had been. It was a tragic fire, not very wide-spread but enough to be tragic. I live on the north side of a park. The fire was located just south of the park. My next minor concern then was police tape. How big an area was closed off? I had to go to the bank yesterday morning, and knew for certain I'd have to make a detour to get around the investigation of the fire. Turned out the area wasn't very large, but big enough I had to go about a half mile out of the way to get around, but nothing like the inconvenience to the folks who lived on that street. I presume they were being let in and out, but there were police and fire vehicles blocking the street to everyone else. As I came around back to the right road on my trip to the bank, I saw a truck from one of the TV stations come out of a side street closer to the fire site. The truck had a camera fixed on a hefty pole that could go up and down to film over things. I thought to myself, "Ha, you picked the wrong street. You're not going to see anything from there!" They must have been driving all around to get a view, but no, the dead-end street I saw them on wouldn't give them a view at all.
After the bank, I went to get groceries. I was putting the groceries in the car when I heard a familiar sound. I said a couple months ago, I think in someone else's journal, that I missed the sound of geese migrating in the fall. Well, it was migrating geese in a nice V. And they were flying *due north*... naturally toward the biggest body of water close by, one of the big reservoirs for the Phoenix area, up in the hills in the far northern part of of my suburb. It was amusing they were flying northward, but in truth in St. Louis this time of year we saw geese fly in formation in all sorts of directions, because of all the big rivers and the scattered farmers' fields for the geese to feed in.
After the bank, I went to get groceries. I was putting the groceries in the car when I heard a familiar sound. I said a couple months ago, I think in someone else's journal, that I missed the sound of geese migrating in the fall. Well, it was migrating geese in a nice V. And they were flying *due north*... naturally toward the biggest body of water close by, one of the big reservoirs for the Phoenix area, up in the hills in the far northern part of of my suburb. It was amusing they were flying northward, but in truth in St. Louis this time of year we saw geese fly in formation in all sorts of directions, because of all the big rivers and the scattered farmers' fields for the geese to feed in.