Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Sounds of yesteryear

Sitting here working on my second cup of coffee as the freight train moves east toward Brainerd, blowing it's horn as it crosses the intersection nearby. Harkens back to a simpler place and time of my youth when you could tell it was 9:30 p.m. as that's when the southbound freight train crossed a nearby road and blew it's horn. It was very punctual. You could set your watch by it and never be off more than a couple minutes. Pleasant memories. What were some sounds you always enjoyed hearing? Another was during fall harvest time when the crops were being worked. Tractors, combines, and hay wagon trains all putting in their time, getting the crops out of the field before the snow flew.

When I was a boy we didn’t have air conditioning so in the summer months I went to sleep at night listening to the night sounds. Whipporwills were my favorite. I had forgotten all about them until I camped during spring turkey season in the Ozarks And heard them every night.

My grandmother, aunt and some help in the packhouse grading and tying tobacco. I'm sure I was underfoot and a pest. Cool damp mornings helped get the leaf in "order" so it wouldn't crumble while grading, tying and pressed. Loved break time, SunDrop and honey buns. My grandparents would feint away if they saw how the leaf is handled now.

Typewriters, rotary dial phones, steam locomotives, and those one-lung John Deere tractors - all very distinctive memory sounds that simply are extinct.

Siren at noon.

Trains run regular through Wabigoon, Ontario, I enjoy the horns.

7:00 AM and 6;00 PM as well.

When working out a Einar Lindstrom's, you could hear the noon sirens from Albert City, Laurens, and Marathon. Naturally, they were all a few minutes apart, and each one of them was, by God, the right one.

The bonging of the grandmother clock in my grandparents house and to a lesser extent, the whir and chirps of the cuckoo clock they had as well.
I now have the cuckoo clock and my brother has the grandmother clock.

This is rather an odd one to remember, but I can hear it as clearly as if it just happened. On chilly mornings, I would lie in bed and hear Dad go down in the basement to ignite the fuel oil furnace. There would be the squeak of the door in the furnace as he opened it, a whoosh as he ignited it, then this "Kar-CHUNG" sound from him as he cleared his throat and sinuses.

The old sawmill north of the house.

I believe that I can relate to that one as it often takes place next to me in bed.

Hearing my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles speaking Italian, English being there second learned language. As kids we were told that there was no need to speak Italian, we were Americans. A big regret of mine.

Damn it Ed now i'm all choked up.

The noon siren on the roof of the fire station. Glass Pack mufflers on cars. Sleeping in the summer with the window open and the screen kept the mosquitos out and let the cricket noise in. Then waking in the morning to hear the soft clucking of pheasants that would come in from the field out back to patrol the yard at dawn for insects or whatever.

Haha! Similar.

No, ole Merton would fire up the mill about 4 or 5.

That way, he and Wendel could get some cutting done before it got hot and the steel plate in Wendel's would cook him.

The school bell ringing school's out!

Ships blowing their fog horns coming up the Delta from San Francisco Bay in the dead of Winter.

The old air raid sirens that got tested twice a year for disasters.

Clyde Ferrell used to operate a sawmill 1/2 mile further up the hollow from where I deer hunted and still do.

He had a heart attack about 1995 and that was that.


7:05 am, he would rev that mofo to about 8000 rpms three times then settle back at about 3/4 throttle.

After that, you were hunting strictly VFR, you dang sure wouldnt be hearing no subtle twig snaps of approaching whitetails after 7:05.

.......... My maternal grandparents were both first generation German - American and bi-lingual. Spent a lot of time there when I was very young. They would speak German in front of me when I wasn't supposed to know what they were talking about. That stopped when I started learning German by listening to them. I wish they would have continued so that today I could be bi-lingual too. It's not so easy to learn a new language as an adult.

Milking machine vacuum pump and compressor.