I was thinking about the noise factor recently while recalling something my parents said a few years ago on a visit to our expansive country estate in West Bem. It was one of those rare summer nights with a comfortable, pleasant temperature and almost no humidity. On top of that, with the only light coming from the flickering citronella candle, the sky seemed brighter than normal with the usual standout constellations, highly visible Milky Way and a crescent moon rising over the tree tops. It was a perfect evening for sitting on the deck engaging in idle conversation, contemplating nothing more complex than the timing for mixing another drink.

Unfortunately, again depending on your perspective, the whippoorwills and tree frogs also found it a perfect evening to perform unrelated but simultaneous concerts with multiple encores throughout their respective performances. I was not particularly conscious of the cacophony around us, having grown accustomed to it over several years of living in the country.

But when the resident coyote pack along the Dry Fork a little north of the deck joined in the nightly chorus, followed almost immediately by their counterparts living along the Bourbeuse River bluff to the south, my parents had had enough. “God, it’s noisy here,” one of them said. “How can you sleep at nights?”

I was astounded. My dad had grown up on a farm; my mother also spent most of her childhood in the country. True, their entire married life had been spent in Springfield, but had they completely forgotten their bucolic childhoods already? Apparently they had. After they went back inside to go to bed, we closed the doors and windows and kicked up the air conditioning.

I went back out on the deck for one last nightcap and listened to the whippoorwills, tree frogs, coyotes and other sounds peculiar to a country night. It indeed was noisy, no doubt about it. But it wasn’t an annoying noise, at least it wasn’t to me.

I did wonder, however, and still do, how a whippoorwill can repeat its call continuously for several minutes at a time seemingly without pausing to breathe. One of nature’s mysteries and it will likely stay a mystery to me since I don’t feel the need to do extensive research on it.

That night on the deck came back to me while spending a few days in Springfield recently. It’s where I grew up although it was a city of only 60,000-some population then. Now it is well over 150,000. And I lived in cities, large and small, until a little over a quarter century ago when the move to the country was completed. I never looked back.

Despite the advantages, I have no desire to live in any city again, big or small, but anticipate that some day, when this place gets too much to take care of, that I may have no real choice in the matter. There are times even now when I think, very briefly mind you, how nice it would be to  live in an apartment or condo with absolutely no responsibility for upkeep of the place. Those thoughts go away quickly, at least for now.

In Springfield, I try to sit on the front porch, or on the deck of my parents’ house once in awhile. A fire truck, ambulance or police car, sometimes all three, run up and down Grant Street, a half-block away, or Kansas Expressway, four blocks the other direction, every five or 10 minutes. Did I mention all their sirens are wailing and air horns blaring on these runs? The Burlington Northern (formerly Frisco) rail yards are just a few blocks northwest.

Noise emanates from there 24/7. The Springfield-Branson Regional Airport is only a couple of miles farther in that direction.

On top of that, the neighbors are only a few feet away and can easily be heard yelling at their kids, or each other. Skate boards are extremely popular with the kids in that neighborhood. I never realized how loud a skateboard is on pavement. There’s a street light just outside the living room and more on every street corner. The back is lit by the dawn-to-dusk light on Grant Avenue Baptist Church’s parking lot.

I’ll take whippoorwills, tree frogs, coyotes and stars you actually can see at night anytime I’m given a choice.