If you are lucky, you remember the noise made every day in small towns across America at 12:00 noon when a siren would blast.
Everyone knew it was lunch time. Kids knew it was time to run home. Dogs knew it was time to howl.
People knew they were part of a community and that all the neighbors shared the sound. In a confusing world, here was something upon which they could rely.
At the very least, one person in the universe was paying attention. Somewhere at city hall, a neighbor or acquaintance was blowing the whistle.
I Googled “noon whistle” and to my delight and dismay, discovered that many small towns still have this nostalgic piece of American life.
Delight because a sense of history and tradition still exist in some parts of the country.
Dismay because Grand Marais no longer has a noon whistle.
Where did it go? What happened to our noon whistle?
The noon whistle is mentioned numerous times on the internet. Apparently, the origin was the manufacturing towns of an earlier America when factory whistles blew and everyone stopped for lunch. The idea was also good since many people did not have electric clocks and it helped them set their clocks with some accuracy.
At any rate, most small towns, whether factory or agricultural, had noon whistles.
The small South Dakota town in which I spent much of my childhood had one. As a youngster visiting my aunts, I would scurry the three blocks back from wherever I was in town to their house for lunch.
I’d long forgotten the charm of the noon whistle until Dick and I moved to Grand Marais in the early 1970s. And there it was: loud and clear, setting neighborhood dogs to barking and imparting a feeling of community. It was nice.
But it’s gone. Why?
I’ve asked around. One person thought that when the whistle apparatus broke, it was decided to save money and not replace it.
Another person remembered a “dust-up” of complaints about noise leading to letters to the editor and its demise.
Somehow, the comforting, (and yes loud) noon whistle was silenced and I wonder. What happened to this simple harmless tradition?
Our town may be in the minority. Numerous small towns across the country weathered the changing times and proudly continue the tradition: among them, Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, Cooperstown, New York and Fallon, Nevada. A group in Steamboat Springs, Colorado is actively lobbying to bring its noon whistle back.
So. What happened to ours?
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