2004-02-21 - 8:31 p.m.

Old World Comforts, New World Ideals

Today while shopping at a newer shopping center in Citrus Heights (part of Sacto), I stopped for a minute when I heard church bells. It turns out it wasn't church bells, but that the shopping center itself had a bell tower that would periodically play. It goes without say that the music was nice. It lent an old world feel to a newer shopping center.

All too often engineers and architects forget that part of building a welcoming atmosphere is not tied into the buildings alone, but the people, wildlife, and sounds that inhabit their projects.

As a child I would spend a month every summer in Pittsburgh, PA. In fact, it was where my grandmother, mother, and myself were all born. During the day I'd play in my grandparents back yard. Throughout the day it was common to hear one of the many churches bell towers playing sweet music.

Except for once a week at noon. Instead of music old civil defense air raid sirens would cry out across the town. It was such a different experience than what I grew up with in the much more modern suburbs of Houston Texas. I loved the air raid sirens, once I understood they were only a drill.

Perhaps this explains why I love ethereal music and noise equally. The two must both stir up pleasant memories of me relaxing on a hill side in the middle of summer in Pennsylvania. It is a shame that my grandparents will be buried in the city cemetery. While I like it enough, I would have liked to one day join them but in one of the smaller, harder to find family cemeteries.

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