Letter to the Santa Barbara News Press from Henry.P. Kramer August 12, 1994

        A number of letters have appeared lately complaining about the noisy environment of Santa Barbara. One person felt that the Mission bells pealing at the early hour of six o'clock in the morning cut short his hours of rest. Another took exception to the barking of dogs. A third was upset by the sounds of the trains through town. In my own experience I have heard people complain about the persistent screeching of birds, the shouting of children at play, the interminable racket of crickets in the summer night, the braying of donkeys, the neighing of horses, the eerie hooting of owls, the cooing of doves, and occasional yelping of coyotes in the hills.
        All of these people are deserving of our deepest sympathy. I myself have been tormented by the doleful sounds of the Southern Pacific trains no matter where in California I resided, whether in Santa Barbara, Paso Robles, or Palo Alto. In all of these small towns, I remember the howl of the train whistle reaching for me through the empty night with the wistful call of far-off glamorous places such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was and remains a melancholy and deceptive sound. I have had occasion since to visit San Francisco and Los Angeles. They were not at all what the train whistle promised.
        We had a dog whose howl in the night was very objectionable to the lady who lived across the canyon where, due to the effects of temperature inversion on sound conduction, the bark must have sounded as if coming from next door. We could do nothing except to apologize for our dog since, in truth, the braying of her donkeys, equally audible to us because of the reciprocal nature of sound conduction, was more musical by far with a wider range of notes.
        An elderly neighbor was enchanted by bird song early in the morning. But he couldn't stand the sound of our children at play. Their shouts and laughter were the most annoying sort of noise to him. He was so angered that when they left their playthings where he could seize them, he threw them down the barranca. He theorized that he could do nothing about the birds except to enjoy them while we, on the other hand, could control our children so that he was absolved from taking pleasure in the sounds of their innocence.
        When I was a child, I lived in a European country where church bells were always ringing, if not for matins, then for vespers, and not only on Sundays but all week long. I remember being deeply affected by the sounds of the bells from one church, then joined by the ringing from another church, and then another, all combining their sounds in the evening air and stimulating the neighborhood dogs to give voice and join the jubilation. This chorus was at times festive and at other times seemed melancholy and sweetly sad. It was such a disturbing experience that after all of these years the memory of it still affects me.
        There ought to be a law.

Very truly yours,

Henry P. Kramer