Sounds of the past

[BlueTrain]

It was before I was born but sometimes 1943 seems just like yesterday. If I were still living in my hometown, it might seem even more recent--and then maybe not!

Well, I have to say I like Christmas music, just not in November. I especially like German music, too, and I have a couple of good CDs of Christmas music that even include yodeling, as in "ein jodler fürs christkind." The same CD even has "Amazing Grace," which is not an American song. But everyone thinks yodeling is as corny as Kansas but I'm used to it by now. " Mele kalikimaka is a good number, if somewhat novel but it dates from the golden era as much as anything does.

 

[2jakes]

I remember liking “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” tune as a kid.
Later I discovered it was by my movie cowboy hero , Gene Autry.
Now I loved it more.

I’m not burnt out yet. I still like Christmas music.
It’s the commercials that I don’t care for whether in the stores or
on television.

The music and holiday movies around December always make me
feel good and the way I remembered Christmas as a kid.

I also love the scent of a real Christmas tree.

Although the eggnog flavor is not the same as I remembered it
in my jute.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The 15kc whine of the horizontal oscillator in a television set. If you had good hearing you knew a television set was on even if you couldn't see it and the sound was turned down.

 

[2jakes]

The high-pitch whirring sound of the drill gun along with the
pungent burnt odor of teeth at the dentist.

Fingernails on a chalkboard.

Screeching tires and heavy metal crunching.

And the worse of them all is bullets whizzing near you.
Felt good and bad at the same time.
Because if you could hear them... you were still around.
But you never knew about the next one.
Living like this on a daily basis will sober you up.
I went in as a kid at 19, got out as an old man at 23.
Not feeling sorry for myself at all.
Just grateful.

If I tend to be optimistic afterwards and always looking on the
bright side and feeling like it’s not so bad nowadays.
Now you know why.

Cheers!

 

[BlueTrain]

Schools have bells to let people know when the day begins, when to change classes and so on. But the grade school I attended had an actual bell-shaped bell on the roof that was operated with a pull rope on the landing on the stairway between the two floors. I remembered it best as the signal that recess was over. Decades later I attended a church that was all "smells and bells." They also rang a bell at certain times during the service. It was an outside bell, too, but I never learned how they made it ring. I missed my chance to ask all those questions when waiting in the sacristy with the rector who was reminding me I had ten minutes to leave town if I changed my mind.

I mentioned sound effects on radio shows. Radio shows that were more drama or mystery than comedy seemed to have either more or different sound effect and that included the sound of a car. Usually it consisted of a funny, not quite accurate sound of a car motor, especially when it was slowing down. Distinctive, phony although very memorable. But who listens to radio dramas?

 

[Frunobulax]

Someone on here ealrier mentioned the tones you would hear in department stores, and indicated they didn't know what they meant. When I was a young man, I worked at Rike's in Dayton (formerly Rike-Kumler). The tones they used were to signify different departments that needed to check in. One set was management, another was the guys who would take your large purchase to the loading dock, etc.

 

[Fading Fast]

Someone on here ealrier mentioned the tones you would hear in department stores, and indicated they didn't know what they meant. When I was a young man, I worked at Rike's in Dayton (formerly Rike-Kumler). The tones they used were to signify different departments that needed to check in. One set was management, another was the guys who would take your large purchase to the loading dock, etc.

Same thing when I worked at Sterns in the early '80s. They were going all day.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

In the early '50s radio station KFWB was the first rock n'roll station in the country. They invented the Top 40 format and pioneered the station jingle. Now I can go online and hear :
"K F W Beeeeee, Channel 98!"
and it takes me right back to SoCal at midcentury.

 

[Harp]

A sound that's disappearing fast is carpenters hammering with actual hammers. My next-door neighbor is having his roof redone this week, and every morning I'm waking up to the ratta-tatta-chatter of a pneumatic nail gun. Do Not Like.

Tar paper, shingles, Chinese pig iron nails, and fingering nails with the left hand and the hammer held in the right paw-fun after the first old layers
had been removed with long handled shovel or a short leg pitchfork. Never used a pneumatic nailer for a roof. But that was a long time ago.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Schools have bells to let people know when the day begins, when to change classes and so on. But the grade school I attended had an actual bell-shaped bell on the roof that was operated with a pull rope on the landing on the stairway between the two floors. I remembered it best as the signal that recess was over. Decades later I attended a church that was all "smells and bells." They also rang a bell at certain times during the service. It was an outside bell, too, but I never learned how they made it ring. I missed my chance to ask all those questions when waiting in the sacristy with the rector who was reminding me I had ten minutes to leave town if I changed my mind.

I mentioned sound effects on radio shows. Radio shows that were more drama or mystery than comedy seemed to have either more or different sound effect and that included the sound of a car. Usually it consisted of a funny, not quite accurate sound of a car motor, especially when it was slowing down. Distinctive, phony although very memorable. But who listens to radio dramas?

Standard Sound Effects Library record #42-B. Worked with it many a time.

 

[BobHufford]

I have not ridden a city bus for decades, but I always like the sound of coins being deposited in the fare box. I would like to have one now to catch my spare change.

 

[MisterCairo]

Irv Weinstein saying "It's eleven o'clock, do you know where your children are"? on WKBW in Buffalo.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Schools have bells to let people know when the day begins, when to change classes and so on. But the grade school I attended had an actual bell-shaped bell on the roof that was operated with a pull rope on the landing on the stairway between the two floors. I remembered it best as the signal that recess was over. Decades later I attended a church that was all "smells and bells." They also rang a bell at certain times during the service. It was an outside bell, too, but I never learned how they made it ring. I missed my chance to ask all those questions when waiting in the sacristy with the rector who was reminding me I had ten minutes to leave town if I changed my mind.

I mentioned sound effects on radio shows. Radio shows that were more drama or mystery than comedy seemed to have either more or different sound effect and that included the sound of a car. Usually it consisted of a funny, not quite accurate sound of a car motor, especially when it was slowing down. Distinctive, phony although very memorable. But who listens to radio dramas?

Me! Dragnet and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

 

[2jakes]

For me...lightning and thunder late at night, in the past and sometimes now,
I think of these fellows.