[To begin at the beginning, please turn to the first blog posts of January 2020. Those early posts lay out historical facts, while subsequent posts reveal the soul of my neighborhood as I knew it. Less historical and more subjective, they concentrate on the characters, customs, and concerns that gave this far corner of New York City its hometown aura.]
Curiosity about the Bronx from those who never lived here can be surprisingly intense. One person wanted to know what it was like for her mother-in-law to grow up in the Bronx during the 1940s. “I want the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, textures…the flavor of everyday life in the Bronx back then.”
The decade of WWII and its aftermath was before my time, but if I were asked to describe the sounds of my Bronx neighborhood in the later decades, three in particular stand out against the run-of-the-mill city noises of police sirens and barking dogs; rumbling engines of cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and low-flying jets; the blasting bass-beat from hot-rod stereos; blaring horns; the ice-cream truck’s music box; parents shouting their kids home to dinner.
In the summer especially, with screened windows wide open and the glass in storm doors swapped out for screens, house sounds crept over windowsills and floated through our immediate universe. Rarely are you alone, was the implicit message. Life surrounds you, and its sounds are your companions.
Country dwellers hear life around them through birdsong and insect hum, the lowing of cattle, the rooster’s crow, the neighbor’s tractor, the whistle of the freight train as it passes through town in the night. In the city, the people-generated sounds are as unique as the individuals behind them.
My three stand-out memories each involve music.
Opera
Every Saturday, late in the morning, the opera lover on the block played through her collection of albums. For those of us with ears attuned primarily to the songs of the Top Ten countdown, the strains of Verdi’s La Traviata and Aida, Puccini’s La Boheme, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde expanded our musical horizons. At first, the notes fell on unwilling ears that heard only drama and angst, formality and stiffness. But eventually we came to anticipate the weekly concert of operatic music, and to recognize, through frequent repetition, the rich tenor voice of Mario Lanza singing Puccini’s aria, “Nessum Dorma.”
The Whistling Woman
Weaving through the clattering of dishes, the thump-shut of kitchen cabinets, the splash of running water, and the hum of a vacuum cleaner, from one house in particular came the loud, clear music of a whistle. On and on it went, emitting a tune typically unidentifiable, yet unmistakably joyful. Anyone of normal hearing within a certain radius, inside the house or hanging out on the stoop, cutting the grass or taking out the garbage, had to admire the flawless execution of this unusual talent. Clean and crisp, it rivaled the sharpness of the most accomplished robin, even when the smooth melody skipped seamlessly into a tremulous vibrato at random intervals.
Her whistling accompanied her through the round of household chores, perhaps relieving the drudgery. Sometimes it seemed the whistling had no beginning or end, that it was always there like an overlay—until the tragic day it stopped, never again to add its special seasoning to our days.
“Wipe Out”
Like the old song “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” we had our own local rock group somewhere in the neighborhood who practiced diligently (some said too diligently) in their quest to conquer one of the most popular songs of the day, “Wipe Out.”
The garage band practiced on weekends. I don’t remember if they started each and every attempt with what has been called the “maniacal beginning” of “Wipe Out,” but I do remember that they had no other song in their repertoire. For the whole long afternoon, weekend after weekend, they struggled with “Wipe Out.” They picked up the tempo, they lost the tempo. They played, they stopped, they started over again. Over and over and over again.
Through the long afternoons, the drumbeats and guitar chords of “Wipe Out” rang out boldly as this group of musicians, with their never-give-up spirit, worked relentlessly to perfect their performance.
Anyone who’s heard the song could appreciate the efforts it took to play “Wipe Out” as the composers intended. A series of high-energy drum solos alternating with gusty guitar riffs, the song challenged but didn’t discourage this determined garage band.
So, as those of us within earshot read a book, cooked dinner, talked on the phone, wrote an essay for school, or rode our bikes, we did it to a “Wipe Out” tempo. And when the band quit for the day…the silence was deafening.
© Barbara Cole 2023. All Rights Reserved.