Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Wednesday, 8/15


Well, the song choice was interesting, to say the least.

As I've written in here many times before, we live in one of the most densely packed neighborhoods in Marquette. Houses and yards sit right next to each other, and you're quite aware that you live on a block with an awful lot of other people. Even though we live on the second floor of our building, there's a building next to us where people also live on the second (and third) floors. It's maybe 20 feet away from our place. And on warm days, when we have our living room windows open and they have their windows open, we pretty much know what each other is doing.

Normally, that's not a problem, although it has, on occasion, led to some rather, well, interesting moments. Not recently, though. Recently it's led to a lot of loud music being fed into our living room whether we want it or not, courtesy of the people who have the apartment on the second floor in the building next door. And it's usually not good music. Usually, it's just some kind of droning techno-beat with no lyrics. It's not my favorite kind of music, and it's led Loraine to wonder if the people living next door know of these things called “earbuds”.

But not Monday night. Monday night, when it was still 85 degrees at 8pm, I went into our living room to do a little packing for the trip, and after awhile I heard the neighbors fire up their sound system. Except it wasn't the usual droning techno-beat. Instead, it was the same song on repeat, over and over again.

And that's how I was able to listen to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” either eight or nine times.

I kind of lost track after a while as to how many times it actually played, which is why I don't know exactly the number of times I heard it. Plus, my mind was reeling with other thoughts—why, after weeks of droning techno-beats, was Gordon Lightfoot all of a sudden on the main stage? And why on a constant repeat? Was the person next door (a college student) studying the sinking of the ship, and needed a little mood music? Were they learning to play it for some reason, and just needed to hear it over and over? Did they put the song on and then pass out, not realizing it was on repeat?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Alas and alack, there was not a repeat performance last night. In fact, there wasn't any music from next door last night, even though our windows were still open. I don't know if the neighbors weren't home, or just not in the mood for blaring out their tunes, or were just embarrassed by the non-stop Gordon fest from the previous evening. Or, just maybe, they took Loraine's hint and looked up the word “earbuds” on Google. Either way, I was spared both the droning techno-beat AND a Gordon Lightfoot marathon.

It was a different way to spend a Tuesday night.


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