Mel says

 Pocomoke Sound (circa 1954)

What did it sound like if you lived in Pocomoke in the 1950s?

From what you’re about to read, you may think that I am saying that mid 1950s Pocomoke was a noisy place.  Quite the contrary. It was a very quiet town. The overall atmosphere was mostly silence that made these sounds all the more apparent. I can still hear these in my head and will try to describe them as best as I can. These are the sounds that broke the overall calm ambiance of 1950s era Pocomoke.

The sound of animals, both near and far away could often be heard through the otherwise silence of the day. Distant roosters could be heard greeting the dawn; the sounds of barking dogs and the occasional shriek of a cat broke the stillness of calm but hot summer days. With windows open on boiling summer nights, there was the songs of crickets and the sporadic croaking of frogs; there were no motors or humming compressors of air conditioners to interrupt the hymn of nature.

The bridge. When the Rte 13 bridge into Market street was raised to allow transit of water traffic, the sound permeated the whole downtown area. It was a ding dong sort of clanky bell sound but it was not a constant repeating tone; there were four or five different notes – and the best I can describe it is as follows:  yer-ding yer-dong ye-dare ye-ding - yer-ding yer-dong ye-dare ye-ding. Not a very good description I know, but I can still hear it in my head – and that’s what it sounds like.

Then there were the factory whistles – from local canneries I believe – and they were very loud – they could be heard for miles. I assume that these were used to announce shift changes, lunch times or whatever, but I don’t know why they needed to be heard outside of the immediate area of the plant itself. One of these canneries – I think – was out on Clarke Ave extended; the other was just across the river in Somerset County. The sound from one of these canneries was quite innocuous – just a loud constant horn-like blare that lasted 10 or 15 seconds, sometime repeated. The sound of the other was rather ghastly – like nothing I have heard – before or since. The best description I can give is to say that it sounded like a dying animal. It started out with a high pitched but loud oboe-like sound but its tone did not stay constant – it went even higher, then squealed a bit; it remained loud as the tone dropped into a bassoon-like register before finally fading to silence with a final shriek. All of this lasted about 15 seconds.

And the fire sirens that called the volunteers to fires, car crashes or any other local emergencies. These wailed at any time needed, day or night, the loud rising and falling cycles – repeated sometimes two, sometimes three or even four times – perhaps depending on the nature of the emergency. This was followed by the sound of cars speeding to the firehouse on 5^th street as volunteers responded, and then by the sound of the sirens of the emergency vehicles themselves. Especially at night, a trained ear could figure out exactly where the fire trucks were headed.

And those trains – those wonderful trains. Day or night – or middle of the night. Southbound trains announced their arrival with a series of loud horn blasts when they reached the Route 13 grade crossing about a mile north of town. Before the dieselization of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the 4-4-2 steam locomotives came stomping through town, hissing and growling while belching out clouds of black cinders as they chugged through, or stopped briefly with their coaches at the passenger station off of 2^nd St.

There were other miscellaneous sounds that punctuated the calm. Large semis rumbling along Route 13, snarling as they downshifted to stop at one of the traffic lights on Market Street. There was the occasional roar of distant drag racing cars – either legally or not; the shriek of 2x4s being cut at the Adkins Co. lumber yard off of Clarke Ave, and the not so infrequent sound of hooves clomping on the pavement, as various vendors, and farmers used horse drawn carts of various kinds to deliver goods and services to local merchants and residents. I’m sure others reading this may recall other sound that I have missed – I would love to hear about them.

(Reader comment)

 Anonymous said...

Wonderful memories! There was one sound I will never forget...

In the days before the beltway Warner Harrison made petroleum deliveries every morning from the Bagwell Marine Terminal in Onancock to Mariner Oil Company on Railroad Avenue via Market then Fourth Streets. One April morning it was extremely foggy as Warner approached the railroad crossing near Fourth and Railroad Avenue. The standard signal for a locomotive was, and still is, two long blasts on the horn followed by one short and another long. That morning a train was approaching in the dense fog and sounded the obligatory signal. Warner decided to answer back with the truck's air horn with two long, a short and another long. The engineer apparently thought another locomotive was approaching him from the opposite direction and immediately locked up the brakes. I think the brakes locked on the locomotive and every attached rail car and the squealing and grinding of metal on metal could probably be heard as far away as the Virginia line.

Great story from Mel, hope to hear from him again.