DATE: Friday, October 10, 1997 TAG: 9710090239 SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL COLUMN: IN PASSING SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg LENGTH: 68 lines
In case you haven't noticed, there's something important missing from the passing scene. I think it's called the sound of silence.
Plop down in a beach chair on a quiet stretch of warm October sand expecting to listen to the waves and the gulls and before you can yell ``turn that thing down!'' some guy with a beer belly and a boom box the size of Baltimore plops down half a block away. His box is tuned to acid rock, the volume is maxed out, his eyes are glazed. From where you sit, the decibels roughly equal those created by a squadron of F18's breaking the sound barrier in unison.
The rocker is a happy person. You are not. Neither are the gulls. They leave and so do you.
And so it goes. In parks, in the classroom, in the library and in the the theaters.
Especially in the theaters.
What ever happened to the idea that people went to movies, concerts and plays to listen to watch and listen to what was going on at the front of the theater?
Bill and I went to an afternoon showing of a Tom Clancy movie one day. There were six other people in the theater. Two were sitting by themselves. The one on the right hand side of the theater was popping a large wad of bubble gum at 15 second intervals. The one on the left was crunching methodically on a stash of very fresh vegetables she had brought with her. In the back of the theater a not-so-young couple sat down and immediately began pawing each other.
Still there was hope for silence. Somewhere in the middle of the theater were two women, homemaker types who were obviously old enough to remember when ushers walked through the theater and shined their flashlights in the faces of those who talked too loudly. We sat several rows in back of them. For about three minutes.
When the movie started, so did their commentary. We found we had been wrong about the homemaker bit. One apparently was a retired drill instructor.
``Look, Mabel,'' she barked. ``There's a submarine. Did I tell you that Alice's husband - he was a submariner you know - walked out on her and took up with their dog groomer and . . . '' We had two choices. We could get all the fascinating details of Alice's husband's indiscretions or we could follow the movie's plot.
We moved closer to the smooching couple. Their sounds were equally fascinating but a heck of a lot quieter. And from across the theater we could still hear the gum being popped, the carrots being crunched and enough of the D.I's story to follow its plot. Not so the movie's plot. Fortunately I had read the book. I filled Bill in on the details on the way home.
A couple of weeks later we went to a concert. Through a stroke of luck we had finagled a bargain on two of the most expensive seats in the house. All was well until an extremely well-dressed couple walked in after the program started and sat in front of us.
Both, as it turned out, were attorneys. We know this because they discussed pending litigation loudly and in great detail throughout the first movement of the first symphony. During the second movement they tempered loud discussion with some quieter activity. By the third movement, their talk had been replaced by sighs and smooches.
They left before intermission.
It seems as though the closest I can get to silence - to say nothing of decency - these days is in my own back yard. Even though we live just a short block off one of the busiest roads in town, it is usually peaceful there. The birds sing, the leaves rustle, the squirrels occasionally chatter and Charlie the Lhasa occasionally barks.
As much as I enjoy being there I still think it's a darned shame that the choices for those of us who appreciate quiet are so limited.
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