s tornadoe
s ripped through the country last week, each new wave of storm cells sounded the alarms here in the Horse Capital of the World. But not in the way the Windy City warned its citizenry of pending terror and danger.In the Windy City, you couldn’t not hear the alarms. They sounded like a fire engine siren—only much louder and much more annoying.
Here in Horseyland, though, the acoustics have to be just right for you to understand what you’re hearing—that is, IF you even heard it. The warning system here is more like the ice-cream truck we had in our old neighborhood, only here it’s more polite. It’s a chime that plays several measures of music. Then someone tells us a storm is near (someone who sounds suspiciously like a political candidate trying to get votes through a bullhorn in a parade). Only not that loud or adamant. Just nice.
It’s all niceness and civility here. Which is probably not the best tactic to use when attempting to protect people from imminent disaster, but in almost all other cases, it’s mighty refreshing.
This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, type Stranger in a Strange Land into Lull’s search function on the right.
[Drop cap by Jessica Hische; illustration depicts Aeolus, Greek god of wind.]
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