You know, there are a lot of sounds from my childhood that I miss. What got me thinking about this was the neighbour mowing the lawn today and then apologizing to me since he noticed I was on the deck, reading. He thought it might be annoying to me. It wasn't, not really, because I have always liked the summer sound of a lawn being mowed. Then, I thought to myself: "Well, not THIS sound, not this roar and rumble of gas mowers. What I liked was the chittering sound of those old push mowers, that tinny sort of musical sound. THAT'S what I like." And I liked the tingley jingle of the Ice Cream Truck, and the rythmic murmer, "swish-shoosh, swish-swoosh" of the old wringer washer that my Mom used ("Don't get any closer...you'll get your arm caught in the wringers and it will get torn right off!") Every Mom had a horror story about someones child/neighbour/relation who had that arm torn right off. And the sound of my Dad making popcorn...not microwave popcorn, not even the hot air poppers, and certainly not Jiffy-pop (that was for camping only...the other two types were unthought of at that time.) but the tinny scrape of the heavy cast pot that Dad used for "real" popcorn. He'd put oil in the pot and then drop in three kernels. As soon as one popped, you knew the oil was hot enough and you had to quickly dump in the rest of the kernels and then put the lid on and shake and shake and shake until all the popping was done. Then it was quickly dumped in a large brown paper bag, salt & melted butter added and shaken until all the kernels were coated with melty goodness. Everyone had a cupboard that was filled with folded paper bags, we got them with our groceries, no plastic back then.

I wonder what sounds today's kids will remember? The chime of a computer starting up? The beeps of their favorite Playstation game? How about the "ding" of the microwave announcing that dinner is ready...or the chime/buzz/humm/Dixie Chick song/ of their infernal cell phone?