I lived in Clinton, CT from around roughly 1985 to 2015.
I lived right on West Main Street across from the Chesebrough Ponds factory.
Every day, a WW2-style siren would go off for about a minute. And since I was right across from where the siren was installed, it was quite loud. If you didn’t know it was “normal”, you might expect the bright flash of a nuke to soon follow.
But no, it went off most days at noon. Why? I don’t actually know… or I did once, and forgot.
Between my apartment and the factory was a major railway track. Trains would zip through in both directions — you’d hear the “tink tink tink” of far off vibration on the rail from a speeding Amtrak train just before the loud, Doppler effect blur raced by.
This happened multiple times a day, and I’d often wave to the people zipping past, even if they couldn’t see me.
And, of course, we had the never-ending busy activity of Main Street right outside our window.
Today, I live elsewhere. I’m still near a major, populated road, but I’m further back. Most of the noises I hear are the activity of neighbors, various birds… maybe some kids playing?
It’s drastically different now.
But I still miss that damned siren and train. I can’t tell you why. Maybe it was the regularity of it. The silence regularly shattered by powerful forces.
Maybe it’s why city life is so attractive to me, and why solitude and quiet are my Kryptonite?
I need that feeling of activity. The pulse of life.