“Let the train blow the whistle when I go.” From the song Let the Train Blow the Whistle — Johnny Cash
“I can hear the whistle blowing, high and lonesome as can be.” From the song Starlight on the Rails — Utah Phillips
“I’m tired of this dirty old city.” From the song Big City — Merle Haggard
City noises surround me once again, like when I was growing up in Chicago. As a freight train rolls through Macomb, dogs bark, the car with the loud muffler circles the block, and the first of many lawn mowers fires up. But I focus on a great crested flycatcher calling, a singing Carolina wren, and then I spot two soaring turkey vultures high overhead. Glancing at the spruce trees in my yard then shifts my thoughts to the northern Lake Superior country, and my mind fills with images of boreal forests, bogs, moose, and timber wolves, even as the train whistle continues to blow.
The whistle, though, is a welcome sound; I imagine the fast-moving train cars traveling quickly through our small town before soon moving onto the rolling countryside, across flat table lands of farm fields, down wooded ravine systems, on bridges over the La Moine River, the Spoon River, and so many smaller streams. The sound connects me to land beyond the town, if only in my mind. When the rumble of the iron wheels fades into the distance, I refocus my attention on bird songs, clouds against the blue sky, and the strong breezes that cause rustling leaves and branches to sway. And of the urban clatter, I try to take little notice.
It is a skill learned in the big city, this filtering out annoyances. With so much going on; so many people moving in all directions at once; signs and lights directing a free person to stop, go, turn here, no turning there; one must find a way to determine what is important. How else to make it through the mob without a collision and through the chaos without vertigo?
In one of the largest urban areas in the nation, I learned how to go it alone, within a sort of moving bubble, sometimes even reading a book while walking to the nearby bus stop; later, focusing intensely on that same book while riding the “L” train to downtown bookstores. I had no interest in dirty brick buildings or roadways jammed with automobiles. And what of the people? Just a turbulent stream of strange faces I hardy even saw and would never see again. To all appearances, I may have seemed completely self-absorbed, avoiding eye contact. And yet, I remained keenly aware of anyone within my peripheral vision, especially someone tracking my movements.
That was how I once lived before over three decades in rural Illinois, where I actually learned to tune in rather precisely to certain sounds, like bird calls, and also to be more tolerant of circumstances beyond my control. But even so, whenever I return to the big city, the old feelings and reflexes quickly return, sometimes to the shock of my wife Julie. There was the time with her when I negotiated a downtown Chicago traffic snarl like a sharp-shinned hawk chasing its prey through a maze of forest trees, or near the Art Institute when I answered a panhandler’s question of “Do you have any spare change I can borrow?” with an abrupt “No!” without slowing my pace or making eye contact.
Of course, those selected recollections merely illustrate survival techniques, and are not really a recommendation on how to behave on a regular basis: dismissive of others; slightly paranoid; aggressive; maybe even rude, depending upon the interpretation. I much prefer being more open to my surroundings, with only a coarse filter most of the time, even waving to folks as I drive down my small town street. Recalling the comfort that I have found in the sound of a train’s whistle, I wonder if I may perhaps one day even warm a bit to the drone of a lawn mower.
Freight train crossing Jackson Street, Macomb, Illinois