LETTERS FROM HOME: SPRINGTIME IN THE BACK YARD, AND HAVING TO LIVE LOUDLY

May 10, 2001

Dear Pat,

It's spring so DC is getting the urge to build and pour concrete. She has sketched out a master plan for the back yard. In one corner is to be a meditation area meant to combat the sonic booms from the stereos at the park next door. It is to have a wooden floor raised to allow small creatures a hiding place from the ferocities of Hank and Lucy.

I look at the plan and ask DC if she thinks the neighborhood will ever quiet down. A look of distress crosses her face. She wants to do something to improve the quality of our lives while I'm thinking about how peaceful it would be to live somewhere where there are fewer cars bearing death-ray bass noises.

Never mind the shootings and stabbings, I just want to be able to walk around the yard without being assaulted by decibels. Sometimes I think finding a deserted island my be the only answer.

When did living become so noisy?

This is a question not for our neighborhood but for society itself. Ten years ago, encounters with blasting car stereos were unusual. Now if you're caught at a stoplight you can count on the peace being disturbed.

When did blasting your taste in music into the atmosphere become a protected form of free speech?

Ads in the newspaper boast of boosting the power of car speakers. Boosting? How about a point-and-shoot device that sends an electronic beam that disables them? That would sell.

Why is it all right to inflict noise on people?

Actually, it isn't OK. But the Cape Girardeau police don't enforce the noise ordinance. The last time I checked, they had never ticketed anyone for having a loud rolling stereo. Maybe the law is unenforceable, though police in some cities carry decibel meters in their patrol cars along with their radar guns. The cops here say the culprits turn down their stereos when they see a police car. Where do I get a police car?

The law states that noise that can be heard 50 feet away constitutes a violation of the noise ordinance. We don't worry about music we can hear 50 feet away. We're concerned about music on the street that threatens to shake loose the lead in the stained glass windows in our house.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just getting too old for rock 'n' roll. That isn't it. I love rock 'n' roll. I'm just too old to put up with a lack of consideration.

We'll follow your plan, I tell DC. Improving the back yard will increase the value of the house whatever happens, I say.

I don't want to build something to increase the value of the house, DC says. I want to build something for us.

Sometimes you change plans, sometimes your plans change you.

The vegetable garden is due to move about 10 yards north. Why it wasn't put in the corner of the yard that gets the most sun is a mystery. Some things occur to you later rather than sooner.

DC tells me many new plants are due to arrive in a few days, including a rose hedge. More roses, hydrangeas and two flower gardens are planned.

My practice putting green will be at the center of the yard.

We're going to break up the sidewalk, very quietly, and replace it with a rock path.

Maybe the meditation garden will act like a sponge that soaks up sound. Maybe we can subtract from the cacophony.

The piece de resistance is to be a fire pit near the cottonwoods. There we'll sit in our old age, I suppose, amid the din silently voting the loudmouths off our island.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.