Bob Hunter

® strictly personal ®

THE ISSUE of noise is something near and dear to my
ear. [am all in favour of rules that treat noise for
what it is: a form of pollution most foul.

The West Vancouver Jawyer
who ‘vants to do something
abe noise on the weekends is in
the running for my Citizen of the
Year Award, should I ever get
around to handing it out.

| have a neighbor who is a
wonderful guy except that he is
addicted to his weed-eater and
power lawn-mower.

If { was an animal, I would
wonder just what the connection
is between sunlight and
machines. [ would sense instine-
tively that the summer season
somehow produced, as a side ef-
fect, an astonishing increase in
decibe} levels.

Just beyond this particular
neighbor is a neighbor who has a
fetish about his chain-saw.

Um sure he would deny that he
has a fetish, but since the chap is
retired and could use his chain-
saw during the week, and better
yet, during the day, why does he
wait until the weekends, and,
more specifically, the evenings on
the weekends?

i'm a peaceful man who used
to read a lot about Zen. I even
tried yoga. Yet rather than wig-
gling into a full lotus to cope
with the stress produced by other
people’s noise, these days [ feel
like doing a cobra. (‘‘Noise is a

disease. Here is the cure."')

Often enough, | thought about
moving out to the boondocks to
get away from the noises of the
city, but after visiting a few peo-
ple who had done this, E changed
my mind.

Most Walden Ponds turn out
to have a motorcycle gang living
just down the highway or some-
body into custom hot rods.

The saddest example [ever saw
— or heard — was a friend who
moved to an obscure island
halfway to Prince Rupert to get
away from it all.

This place wat so remote that
you had to have your own boat
to get there. There was no elec-
tricity, no telephones, no roads.
It was paradise.

Except that, in order to. sur-
vive, he wound up having to buy
a diesel-powered generator. So
there he was, bothered only by
the wind and the distant howling
of wolves and the roar of his
own generator.

No, I think it’s better to take a
stand right here in the suburbs.

There are noise bylaws to pro-
tect us to a certain extent from
all-night yahoos, although what
really saves us is the degree to
which most people are civilized,
Yet that civility wears thin on

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weekends. And even quite
beautiful people forget their
manners the moment they start
looking at the Jawn or the hedge.

It is assumed that because
these people are not actually hit-
ting anyone over the head with a
two-by-four they are not guilty of
assault and battery.

I say they ARE guilty.

Pounding on my ear-drum is
the same thing as a physical ar-
tack, kt involves vibrations that
cause me pain, produce stress,
change my chemical balance, and
no doubt shave several minutes,
if not hours or years, of f my life.

Life is too short and lovely
weekends too rare to be ruined
by anybody's outrageous racket.

In an era when people have
become so. sensitive about miat-
ters like cigarette smoke infring-
ing on thei: riehts, ¢ find it amaz-
ing that) power mowers and
chain-saws are still lewal, and
even more amazing that they are
allowed on at any old time of the
day.

At tie very least, they should
be limited to weekdays and no
more than an hour at a time.
After that, | know, my nervous
system begins to discombobulate.

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