Sounds in the night?

Luckily, Iris is not like Dagwood Bumstead's wife. She does not wake me in the middle of the night to investigate strange noises coming from somewhere in our darkened home. Perhaps she is enough younger than I that she never lived in a home without electricity. Houses at night sounded different in the olden days.

Unlike Blondie, Iris does not send her husband quivering into the dark to confront real or imagined burglars. As a matter of fact, she has restrained me several times. Noises in the night have radically changed since I was a boy, and that is the result of modern technology which Iris can accept, but I have difficulty adjusting to. Covering the criminal beat for 50 years hasn't helped.

This subject came up recently after Iris deliberately sold our "barely broken-in" refrigerator and bought a new one. This ultra modern appliance doesn't accept cube trays but instead produces a constant flow of ice that mysteriously drops into a holding compartment and spits through the door if a thirsty person holds out a glass. That may be wondrous, but when it gives birth to a new litter of cubies at 3 a.m., it sounds to me like a herd of burglars. This distraction is now added to the water softener which to my old, but still alert ears, often reproduces the sounds from the "Flood of '64." Can't forget the thermostat-controlled furnace that can kick on different sounding blowers and forest fire sound effects at the least expected time.

It doesn't end there. We also have the fireplace heat circulator, weak battery warning beepers in the smoke detectors, and the ever-active hot water heater which will make no sound until the sun is well down. We occasionally hear from the automatic VCR programmer, the delayed dishwasher cycler, the freezer motor, and radios turned on by a mis-set alarm. Rustling at every breeze are the wind chimes on the front porch which in a good gust reverberate on delicate eardrums like a rock through the window.

Up in the mountains of Hog Heaven where I was raised in a log cabin, the only internal night noises were very rare "creak creak creaks" as some miserable family member crept over the wooden floor, anticipating the long dark trail through the bear, lion, and wolf infested woods to the icy seated outhouse. People in those days were much more watchful of their bathroom habits, and strenuously avoided nocturnal. . 'er. . . movements. A person who went to the outhouse two nights in a row was usually considered to be critically ill or incurably disorganized.

There were the rare sounds of an errant packrat, or common wind through the trees and once in a while. . .trees through the roof; but none of these were the kind of vibes that made a restless sleeper think of sneaky thieves ripping off the family heirlooms.

Another reason thieves were seldom associated with things that went "bump in the night" in those days, is the fact that fewer parents raised their children to be burglars. The thief field just wasn't nearly as crowded in 1938. Maybe this was because hardly anyone had anything worth stealing. The average family did not have a movable item in the house valued over seven dollars. When I borrowed the Mine boss's rifle during deer season, I slept with it. This caused some family problems which is understandable one you know my brothers and I were raised under the "share a bed plan."

If Iris was to spend a few days out of town, leaving me here all alone, I suppose there could be a chance of her returning to find a bullet hole in that new refrigerator. . . the one that sounds like a burglar.

If Blondie was my wife. . .that could have happened weeks ago.