You could count on it: at least twice every year, bats invaded our home on the river, driving us nearly mad until we opened the doors and windows and urged them out. One particular early morning, a bat awakened us.
Just how the bats got in was a summertime mystery. In their eagerness to get out, they eventually flew into our bedroom, where they beat from wall to wall until one of us mounted enough courage to get up and open doors. We still suffer from the notion that bats are satanic beasts. Even today, though we are veterans of bat wars, we’re not at ease in their company.
Years ago — many years ago — I sat in a classroom with a group of midshipmen being lectured by a female naval officer on the subject of communication procedures. We were not being entertained and were not impressed by the ranking female in front of us. Women’s lib was not then in vogue.
A bat crawled out from behind a picture and commenced a series of swoops and tight turns in the face of our instructor. We all thought the lady would soon see her position vis-a-vis a roomful of men. She never flinched. She stood her ground more manfully that did we. We ducked each time the bat flew over our heads. The lady opened the window.
The bat continued its peregrinations until, in good time, our instructor opened the window on an opposite wall. Once the bat got the drift of it, urged on by the air current, it made a beeline for freedom.
Bats!
And now, on to the subject of trains.
We find we have another cause for insomnia. Several years ago, an old gentleman was stuck in his car at a railroad crossing on the Northfield side of the river. Somehow, he failed to hear the whistle that should have warned him to keep clear of the freight-trains that rumbled up and down the Pioneer Valley.
I suppose that in the investigation that followed the accident, it was demonstrated there was a need for more persistent “tooting.” A judgment was made, engineers complied. Toot! Toot!
If you have good hearing, like bats, you can hear engineers practicing their whistles south in the switching yards. When the sound of those whistles reach us, dogs begin to howl in response to the unnerving racket.
If you have an academic leaning toward science and the study of sound, you may not spend your waking hours contemplating the phenomenon of the “Doppler effect,” as it is exemplified in this train whistle tooting.
As trains get closer and closer, the whistle gets higher and higher. Its ear-breaking shriek reaches a peak as the trains come abreast of you. Then, as the train moves away into the distance, its pitch lowers, trailing off gradually into an attenuated and not unpleasant echo of its former strident self.
Unfortunately, it may require a half-hour or more of unrelenting tooting to demonstrate the Dopple effect to a point where you actually experience it.
I began by noting that two of us were up one early morning, chasing a bat. I don’t really remember whether we were awakened by that bat, or the sound of a train whistle.
There above us, though, was peace. The Milky Way stretched like a soft white cloud from horizon to horizon. The Big Dipper was posed to hold every trickle of raindrops. There were a few shooting stars, though not the meteor showering we’d read about. From time to time, though, celestial fireworks helped make sense of our being up at that rude and raw hour.
And so, back to bed we went, somewhat reconciled with our midnight adventure. “Toot toot!