Sunday, April 02, 2006

The Whistle

In a recent blog, I recalled the nine o'clock Curfew Whistle.

Indeed, the whistle did strike fear and terror in all the kids under eighteen years old.

But the other two times when the residents of Nanticoke heard the whistle, the warning it was sending was more terrifying than just the nine o'clock warning.

The whistle also alerted volunteer firefighters as to the location of a fire within the city limits.

Three long blasts followed by six short blasts signaled the number 36.

The number 36 indicated the corner of Church and Fairchild streets, where I lived.

Even more terrifying were those long, long, continuous blasts that announced some sort of life threatening news coming from the colliery.

Those long blasts indcated a cave in, fire, or explosion, not unlike the events that hapened in the first quarter of 2006 inWest Virginia.

The sound of that whistle still haunts me today, 50 years after leaving Nanticoke.