It is good to live in Gainesville. So far it is just the right size. It is, however, poised on the cusp of a disaster. People keep moving in and the people already here are living longer and, understandably, refuse to depart this lovely place (I'm a prime exemplar of this group). Presently our cultural, communication and service entities are a perfect match for the community in which they exist. By this I mean that our theaters - professional and amateur- are perfectly sized for their audiences, parks and athletic venues are just right (except for the southeast part of town which has never been treated fairly by the powers-that-be), our roads are strained but holding their own, our health facilities are superb and in such a robust state that they can export their services, our educational institutions are adequate and, largely, above average, our museums are extraordinary...all-in-all a good match for our size. Even our newspaper is more than sufficient. It tells us most of what we need to know about our town , our county, our state and...that is where it seems to stop. If a reader wants the bigger picture, the images and news of the world outside Gainesville he (or she) has to seek elsewhere. My elsewhere is the New York Times. That glorious rag is a window on the whole world. It helps to keep ones brain from descending into a state of habitual and narrow provencialism. Having said that, the op-ed views of the NY Times are not of particular interest to me. Virtually everything else about the paper is. Particularly the Arts section. I have been striving for the better part of three months to have the NY Times sent to my door each Sunday. I have been getting up before the break of dawn each Sunday since we ordered the paper, hoping to witness the arrival of that blessed event. Each Sunday morning I would eagerly search the front yard for the paper and each Sunday I would be bitterly dissappointed. Yesterday, I approached the window by the front door and peered blearily out , expecting only the Gainesville Sun to be resting on the lawn. Low and behold I saw
two plastic wrapped parcels. Two! I scampered out the door in my evening attire (a tee shirt over jockey shorts) to find the Gotham Fishwrapper nestled lovingly next to its country cousin Gainesville Sun. The NY Times had finally come through. This occurence precipitated a hallelujah moment. My wife and I can take the nearly one pound of newsprint to Bream Lake and we don't worry about having anything to read for the better part of a whole week. Selah.
The sound that came with this image was the boyish squeal of pure joy at being momentarily suspended between the sky and the cold waters of Bream. We hear these kinds of sounds a great deal on weekends when we visit our grandchildren and their friends at the lake. On week days the sounds are much different. At Lake bream there is a default absence of sound. When nothing is happening at the lake nothing is heard. This, however, is usually not the case. There is often the sound of dogs barking in the distance. At Bream one can see sad little country dogs all over the place. They are often flea- ridden, rather emaciated, pathetically forlorn little mixes of dachsund and...you name it. There must have been, at on time , a terribly lusty and determined dachsund sire roaming Bream and impregnating very other bitch in sight- usually not dachsund. As a result there seem to be innumerable little clones all over the neighborhood. If the dog is not of this variety, then it is usually of a pitbull-mix type. Pitbulls are much coveted by the denizens of the Bream and Hawthorne area for reasons that should be evident. All of these dogs bark at the slightest provocation and they continue to bark through much of the day and night. There is a sound that comes to Bream as regularly as that of a Big Ben in London: that is the sound of the CFX freight trains in the distance. There are two rail lines that run within a few miles of our lake house and the trains have regular schedules, bringing them through several times in a day and night. This is a good sound. It is even better if the engineer feels the need to blow his whistle. There is a timeless and nostalgic quality to a train whistle that never becomes tiring. Another type of sound emanates from various critters in and around the lake: the slapping of the water by bream and bass that punctuates the daytime hours; the various bird sounds, including the clarion shreik of the hawk, the sweet singing of the mockingbird, the comedic squaking of our duck family, the indescribable noise of the various waterfoul, and the obnoxiously intrusive calls of the crows. In the late afternoon and early evening the insect world begins to contribute to our Bream symphony: the cicadas and crickets join in, a few at first and then building to the thousands. The last to enter the chorus are the frogs and the occasional nocturnal avians, such as owls and whipperwills. There is one sound that can occur anytime day or night. It is a sound that I absolutely despise. The ugly, jolting sound of gunfire. It seems that the folk around Bream love their weapons and everybody has some. The noise of weapons being fired- pistols, rifles, shotguns- is prevalent throughout the 24 hour cycle, in and out of hunting season. It is is a sound , at once, of insecurity and desparate bravado. A pitiful cry of "Look! I really am somebody. I've got a gun and I know how to use it." The first part of that statement is patently true...the latter part is seldom the case. Bream is laden with sound and most of it is heavenly with only a tiny bit of hell. 
