My childhood on Falmouth Foresides was quiet. Occasionally ship pulled their horns leaving Portland Harbor and a channel buoy bonged out the passing waves. At night I listened to the Celtics game on a small transistor radio from Japan. The volume turned to almost silence. My older brother was a light sleeper. Mornings belonged to the chirping birds and my mother's call for my brother and me to get ready for school.
None of this coastal quietude was good preparation for our move in 1960 to a suburb south of Boston. The neighborhood itself was peaceful, however our split-level ranch house lay directly beneath the landing pattern for Logan airport. The jets powered down sixty seconds apart, as if Boston was under attack from a bombing run. I was eight.
That first night I lay in bed crying. My brother was dead asleep. Sobs and planes didn't disturb him. Only the voice of Johnny Most calling the Celtics.
My Uncle Jack entered the darkened bedroom and sat on my bed.
"What the problem?" Uncle Jack was the youngest of my uncles. He had a good laugh, so did the rest of my uncles. We were a close family.
"The planes." I whispered, as a flight whined overhead.
"The planes." He laughed with relief. "Those planes are bringing people home from trips far away. Soldiers, sailors, mothers, fathers, and children. They're a good thing."
"But they're loud." Only the fireworks for the 4th of July were louder.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Jack followed the plane with his eyes. His house was up the street. He shrugged a shoulder. "Believe me you'll get used to it. My kids did."
"They did?" Jack had three sons. 8, 7, and 6.
"Yeah, you cna get used to most everything." Jack said like he was telling a lie. "Well,not everything. I ever tell you about the time I was in the Chosin Reservoir."
"No." Uncle Jack had been a Marine lieutenant during that war. I read comic books about their battles. He had won several medals for bravery. Everyone in my hometown called him a hero.
"I marched through that frozen hell with my troops. We started out strong, but day by day we lost friends. I can remember their names. Their faces. The Chinese blowing their bugles. You want to talk about noise. Loud and then we'd shoot them down with machine guns. Rifles. Hand grenades. Rocks. Then it was over. Everyone dead or so exhausted that they couldn't even breathe. Quiet. Just like now. Then there was a gasp. Not one, but by all the living, wounded, and dying. Some crying too, but none of it loud like that."
Uncle Jack pointed to the approaching roar of a jet.
"Silent like no one was sure what they were, because we were scared. Chinks and us. No one wanted to die anymore. I went to sleep right after that. The only officer left in a command of ten men. Slept like a king surrounded by the dead. Now you go to sleep too." His voice had authority. Men of that era were taught that. He patted my head and then said, "Not an order. Dream if you got them."
It was a strange bed story.
Probably should have kept me awake for hours, instead I slept until dawn and Uncle Jack was right. I did get used to the jets. Not that they became quieter. Only that I couldn't hear them anymore.
Years later I ran a cross-country track meet in East Boston. My school against Don Bosco. The course skirted the beach across a channel from Logan. Neptune Road was so loud that your filling vibrated loose.
No one that lived on that dead end street said that they grew accustomed to the noise.
Not then and not now.
And neither will Uncle Jack to sobs at night.
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