Eye on History

Glen Hancock

The other day at Joe’s Emporium we were talking about sounds in the environment of our youth that are no longer heard; the sounds of happy voices of skaters on frozen ponds and the whump-whump of bobsleds as they race down crunchy snow trails and slopes in the rural neighbourhood, now possessed with the roar of snowmobiles and all terrain vehicles.

These are the sounds that many old people have in their memories, and they feel alienated by the sounds of modern technology and the language that goes with it. Yet the varieties of sound trace our social and scientific development.

Perhaps the first sound in the early morning, except for the crow of a rooster, was the scrape of a match lighting the first pipe of the day in the hired man’s room. And then was heard in the kitchen the crunch of a page from yesterday’s newspaper as it preceded the kindling in the woodstove. Next was a splash of kerosene. We made fun of this dangerous procedure:

Poor Biddy’s gone

She went to light the fire at early dawn.

To make the fire burn brightly,

She used some kerosene.

Poor Biddy’s gone.

Indoor sounds, like the scratching of a slate pencil, or even the sound of the pencil sharpener (now power operated) have gone from the classroom. Newspaper offices, once a bedlam of noises as typewriters, type setters and copyboys responded to the shouts of reporters and editors, are now as silent as mortuaries with the carpeted floors and the eerie stillness of computers.

The swoosh of the gramophone needle as it ran in the end trough is gone in the wake of electric amplifiers. The singe of hair curlers is no longer heard in the bathroom or kitchen. The clang of the National Cash Register in the grocery store disappeared long ago.

Old fashioned outside sounds have almost completely disappeared. In Wolfville, for instance, a hand-held bell was used to hurry malingering pupils. Later, an electronic version was used.

In the MacKay school, built in 1893, there was a belfry and a bell, which was used primarily as a fire bell for the town.

There was a conference of familiar sounds in the old days, remembered nostalgically by the old boys of the emporium. The sound of the Kipawo’s whistle approaching the harbour was the signal for the town’s population to float down to the government wharf to see what the ferry was bringing from Parrsboro and Kingsport.

Wolfville was very much a rural town at the beginning of the 20th Century, in spite of the urbanity of Acadia University, and the sound of the steam whistle from the planing mill across the tracks at noonday was ordinary. There was even the mooing of cows and the squealing of pigs that were housed in outbuildings on Main Street. And if you were near enough you could hear the squirt of milk hitting the pail and even the meow of a cat getting a gush of milk directly from the cow’s teats.

A series of brooks babbled their way to the Cornwallis River. The ceaseless sound of babbling brooks always remind me of eternal life. They now run noiselessly underground. So much for eternity.

The croaking of frogs has disappeared from the wet places, and toads have gone from gardens due to lawnmowers and insecticides. The slither of snakes has long since disappeared.

In the ‘20s, overshoes were popular and no one buckled them up. The ensuing flap-flap was a common sound. Although there were few cars – most of them being up on blocks for the winter – those that ventured out had chains on the wheels. When a link broke the chain made a distinctive sound as it clapped against the running board. The ga-ooga of the automobile horn was a common sound that frightened horses and threatened jay-walkers before crosswalks appeared.

The chunk of the iceman’s pick was a pleasant sound to urchins who followed the ice cart, looking for chips on hot summer days. Horses neighed on Main Street, tied to hitching posts.

Oldsters, on their special outings to Halifax, remember the tramcars (the Burneys) and the clang, clang they made as the cars stopped at intersections for the trolleyman to change the power line. In Windsor, the first trollies were pulled by horses.

The sounds in business offices are as silent as those in newspaper editorial rooms. There is little to remind one of the old days of the typewriter. There is no carriage bell, no clicking of keys. No need for carbon paper.

My first typewriter was a Smith Premier No. 10. It had stone keys and no shift key. There were two sets of keys, upper and lower case. It made a lot of noise and I’ll never forget it.

Only one thing that remains in a writer’s equipment is that the letters remain in the same relationship on the keyboard.

Modern computers seem unable to improve on the keyboard first invented by Christopher Sholes in the 1870s.