Whatever happened to Sunday being a day of rest? It seems there is no longer a time when people chill out, gather with friends or relatives and just stop “DOING”.
I often wake up on a Sunday morning to the sound of someone mowing their lawn. There was a time when lawnmowers were pushed by hand and the noise was actually mellow. I think the only time you’re going to see one of those is if you go to the Smithsonian. Now even if someone has a postage stamp for a lawn their on a seated mower that a farmer might use on the back forty. It doesn’t end with that! They often follow-up with the leaf blower from hell. I believe whoever invented it had a sadistic mind and wanted everyone to go deaf.
There’s often sawing, nail guns, and loud music ramped up so that the person using the nail gun can hear it. Recently someone was power washing their deck. The motor went on relentlessly for hours making me feel like I was having a hole drilled in my head. Oh, you’ll hear the usual excuses., “that was the only day we could do it”! But, I think that way of thinking is that of a culture that no longer values making Sunday one of respite from the relentless pursuit of trying to work and doing chores. I realize there are still folks out there that make Sunday one that simulates the past, but they may be a dying breed. What I really think makes me crazy is those who embark on all of the above, don’t seem to think that they might have some neighbors that need peace and quiet. Neighbors used to value how they affected each other, but since we segued into the era of self entitlement, it becomes every man for himself.
You can see this thought process permeating a great deal of how we now treat one another. It really is part and parcel of a broader concept called civility. After all shouldn’t I be able to rev the motor of my car at 7AM, or drown you in a myriad of sounds on a day you might like to enjoy being surrounded by stillness. Lots of luck, stillness is eventually going to be completely absent from our lives. You will probably have to tunnel down a mile in your back yard to get away from it. I don’t know about you but I’m going to start digging.
well, I still have a push mower but now my grass is plastic
Some places have outlawed weedeaters Yay!
that’s a t uff one about the music tho ..
my Dad used to have a speaker in the back yard to hear his records
now the city has “noise limit laws” :/
I think the real problem is Too Many People!
we’re living with no “elbow room”
You hit on something that has been of interest to me the last few weeks…the subject of “civility”.
For the last four years I have had a page on my website entitled “On Civility”. It is a collection of “essays” on the subject of civility, such as “George Washington’s Rules of Civility”, that he wrote sometime before the age of 16 and for the last four years was virtually ignored, getting perhaps couple of dozen viewing a year.
However, over the past few weeks it has exploded to dozens of viewings a day. (I don’t really see any increase in civility out there to account for it)
I have checked and it is not linked on anyone else’s website and even on mine it is sort of buried where it does not jump out at you. You have to go looking for it in order to find it.
I have no idea what is up!
This year I moved from the country where neighbor proudly and openly keeps 12 roosters bred for fighting. Crow when a mouse farts in the night. I moved into a wonderful town where I became the eccentric mowing with a reel mower,planting tomatoes,squash, basil and marigolds in front flowerbed of the large house I forsook to live in the tiny guest house just off the alley nestled in the trees. I hear the wrens,cardinals and scolding hummingbird if window of this century old masonry place are open other wise only the tick of the clock ripples my reverie . Most neighbors don’t know if I am even home.
Here I will heal,here I am home.
I wish you such peace.