It was a clanking, whirring, roaring, humming diesel drill. : Small but Satisfying Hatreds

It is a basic need of our species for everyone to hate something. Without the tang of hatred, humanity would drone along in a somnambulant state, newspapers would fail for lack of good old-fashioned international loathing, and television would drown in its own sweet swill.

Hate, let’s face it, is exciting.

I am not talking here about large hatreds, although they have contributed gloriously to the steady flow of mankind down the sewers of history.

I am talking about the small hatreds that keep things perking around the old neighborhood. Tidy little antipathies that gleam and sparkle in the sunset.

The hatred, for instance, of noise.

What brings this to mind is a situation in an otherwise tranquil North Hollywood neighborhood, a pleasant area of tree-lined avenues with names like Shadyglade and Milldale.

Folks in the neighborhood are angry enough to disembowel anyone associated with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power because of the sudden appearance last week of a towering yellow derrick in a right of way behind their homes.

The derrick houses a clanking, whirring, roaring, humming diesel drill, the purpose of which is to tap into an underground water basin.

Typical of a city agency, the DWP moved it in without notifying anyone and, naturally, cranked it up in the middle of the night.

To say that the neighborhood was upset by the noise is to say that America was mildly annoyed when the Japanese blew up Pearl Harbor.

“I was outraged,” says Alvina Pressman, whose backyard faces the derrick.

She is a tiny, birdlike woman who smiles easily and who, one can safely assume, would not under normal circumstances yearn to stick a bayonet into the guts of the DWP’s chief engineer.

“It was a horror of noise! The whole house shook!”

She hated it.

This was not, you see, a dog barking down the street or a cat in heat on the backyard fence. This was big. This was machinery .

Alvina hurried outside and there it was, not 50 feet from the back of her house, a yellow derrick bathed in floodlights. Three workers stood nearby.

“Is this going on all night?” she shouted over the roar.

Two of them simply laughed at her, and the third said, “It sure is, lady.”

Alvina telephoned the police, who of course did nothing, and by the next day the bleary-eyed neighborhood was up in arms.

“They wouldn’t have done this in Beverly Hills,” Alvina told anyone who would listen. “We’re between two dumps, and they figure they can do anything they want and who gives a damn?”

Fortunately, City Councilman Howard Finn did. He is a tough old bird who is not afraid to get out there and kick a little tail occasionally, even though mine was the little tail he once kicked.

Finn came down on the DWP like a thunderbolt from the Lord. He told them that they were arrogant and bullying and damned well better stop trampling on people’s rights.

Not only did the night drilling cease immediately, but sound buffers were installed around the equipment and the DWP offered an abject apology for not informing the neighborhood before the drilling began.

There is still a lot of clanking and roaring and whirring and humming going on, but it is at least somewhat muted and never after dark, a perfect example of how a little hatred can precipitate a beneficial response.

Everyone can relate to the incident off Shadyglade Avenue because loud noises traditionally evoke the kind of satisfying hatred we all enjoy.

Hardly a week goes by that there are not angry complaints about jets over Burbank, dogs in Topanga, parties in Northridge, dirt bikes in Agoura Hills or teen-agers just about everywhere.

My own aversion to noise is in singles bars. I do not deliberately go to singles bars. I am not single to begin with, but, even if I were, I am intellectually incapable of trading verbal inanities for sexual favors.

But because singles bars are not required by law to identify themselves at the entryway, I have found myself occasionally in the midst of their calamity during the height of mating season.

I don’t know why singles feel it necessary to scream in order to communicate with one another, but I suspect it may be instinctive and therefore beyond their control; the human equivalent of a grasshopper rubbing its thighs together in order to attract a breeding partner.

Noisy singles wouldn’t be so bad, I suppose, if they had something to say, but the combination of chaos and vacuity is almost too much for the human auditory senses to absorb.

But I suppose I am fortunate that they have not set up their bars in my backyard or, worse, built an arena to house the water beds they no doubt employ later to conclude their mating ritual.

If their drinking places are chaotic, we can only imagine with a shudder the amount of howling and screaming that must go on when they finally get it all together.

Even Howard Finn wouldn’t be able to quiet that down.