Country Mouse

 

Amtrak Acela rolls by

I've stayed in New York City. 

San Francisco.

London.

Chicago.

The point is that I've laid my head down in many more urban areas than where I grew up and lived most of my life. In Mahopac and Carmel, the nightly symphony was mostly created by nature.

In fact, literally, all of my homes were in fairly quiet neighborhoods. Oh sure, I had an apartment roughly across the street from a firehouse but they didn't sound their siren in the middle of the night.

Flash forward.

Greenwich, CT. 2022.

If you were to walk out in the backyard of my apartment -- and I very much DO NOT ADVISE THIS -- the first thing you'd come across would be train tracks. They serve Metro-North Railroad, Amtrak, and freight trains.

Beyond that lies Interstate 95.

After moving in, I quickly learned that the hum of traffic literally never stops. I've strolled into the living room in the middle of the night -- ah, peace and quiet -- only to have it shattered by the zooming of cars and trucks rolling by.

The trains are omnipresent but given that Metro-North does stop running trains overnight, it's not always something I hear.

Well, OK, let's go to last night.

I dozed off reasonably, only to deal with "Shadow," the new nickname for our over-named cat. Rascal, as I've mentioned, is fascinated by shadows from cars as they go by my bedroom window. To combat that, I have started putting a light on next to my bed that, for whatever reason, has been working.

With that settled, I was able to rest.

Then something awakened me in the 2 a.m. range. At least I think it was around there. It could have been the temperature, age, or whatever. 

I strolled to the kitchen and that's when I saw a bright light out on the train tracks.

Oh, and a crane. Clearly, trackwork was going on maybe a football field away.

I popped the window open nearby to see if the noise I was hearing was coming from there. Yes, it sure was.

OK, I thought, my room is away from that. We'll get through this. 

However, when something makes a louder noise on the tracks (like the train that is currently moving by as I type) then that's different. Sure enough, I could hear each crash of the efforts from the work.

Keep in mind this now, roughly, somewhere around three in the morning.

And a tip of the conductor's hat to the train that came by on another line and blew its horn!

Sleep wasn't happening. I read. I played Solitaire and Mario Kart on my phone. I read whatever nonsense had occurred online.

At least the cat wasn't a problem at that point.

It took some time -- I'm pretty sure it was well after five -- before my mind cleared and I slept for another hour or so. I was awake before 7 a.m. as I needed to get ready for my Friday morning sports chat with Tony Savino on WGCH.

As I said in the opening I have dealt with sleeping in New York and elsewhere and the hustle and bustle. To be clear, I'm also not saying the work on the train tracks was what kept me awake. 

But, I am saying it didn't help.

I should have put my noise-canceling headphones on but they're bulky to try to sleep with. Thus I need some earbuds but haven't caved to AirPods yet.

Well, I actually had an old pair that my niece gave me but they don't like going through washing machines. 

What this narrative comes down to -- as if you couldn't guess -- is that I'm just not a good sleeper.

With any luck, this will hopefully give you a peaceful sleep. 

I consider that a win.

(Football tonight at 7 as Greenwich plays St. Joseph. More football tomorrow at 1 p.m. as Brunswick hosts Wyoming Seminary. Catch Greenwich on WGCH, LocalLive, Robcasting. You can find Brunswick on LocalLive and Robcasting.)