Growing up as one of nine children, there were always many sounds in our house!
"Come home when the street lights go on." This was used in a time before children commonly wore watches much less carried cell phones. The shouts of children in the neighborhood playing Mother May I, Red Rover, and Hide and Seek in the yards. (Before the street lights came on!) The fire whistle that sounded at noon and six o'clock along with the ringing of church bells. Then you knew it was time for lunch or dinner. No watches needed! An exasperated mother reeling off several of our names before finally saying "You know who I mean!". We called it the litany of the saints. The sound of music always. Classical, Show Tunes, "Your Hit Parade" and everything in between. Other sounds included basketballs againdt the backboard, tennis balls against the side of the house, the crunch of leaves on the sidewalk in the fall and the scraping of frost to draw on the inside of the windows in the windows with our fingernails.
Sounds we never heard: parents argueing, "Wait till your father gets home" and cussing or swearing. Am I dating my self?.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I, too, remember a lot of those sounds.
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