Siren's Song?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Don't know about the 40's-50's when TRP was a kid, but during the early 60's in Brooklyn (a short hop from Long Island), the siren would sound and we'd either be instructed to get under our crappy wooden desks or be herded down to the "Nuclear Fallout Shelter," i.e. the basement.

Just yesterday, I was on a  subway car which was emptied for a half hour (we were instructed to wait on the platform right next to the train) until some cops could come and retrieve a shopping bag someone had left on the train.  They gave the "all clear" and we went on our way.  All theatre, in both cases.


-----Original Message-----
From: ruudsaurins at aol.com
Sent: Nov 1, 2005 11:48 PM
To: Pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Siren's Song?

A squeaming comes aquoss this guy......
           ......and its while of the list....as a child growing up (trying to) in suburban Chicago, I was fascinated by the periodic testing of the civil defence siren whose piercing noise (screaming?) could not be missed and would interrupt whatever was going on at the time.  Since it was never accompanied by any air raids, it assumed the peculiar traits of being simultaneously obnoxious and reassuring.  It was as if our government wished to let us know in no uncertain terms that they could warn us if needed.
           I was always puzzled by the "screaming" at the opening of GR, knowing that the V-2 was faster than sound.  That the screaming could be a siren never occurred to me.  Now (Thanx!, posters!) it seems quite possible that the screaming is a siren, and that the inspiration may have been TRP's adolescent exposure to the civil defence sirens of Long Island, assuming they employed the same technology.  Does anyone out there know if Long Island had those obnoxious little buggers?
                                                                        truly,
                                                                        ruud