Only the pacifying euphony of a stretch 737 broke the stillness. : The Roar of the Drizzle

For those in Calabasas Highlands who have been concerned the past several days over the ominous presence of an angry, Cuban-appearing person in their neighborhood with no apparent purpose or destination, relax. It was just me, sniffing out an ambient noise or two.

I was there, for instance, yesterday morning when the Santa Monica Mountains were laced with mist and, I’ve got to tell you, the roar of the drizzle almost deafened me. God bless the Federal Aviation Administration; they were right again.

Allow me to explain.

For several years, the people who live in the Highlands and in Topanga Canyon have complained that the noise of jetliners approaching Los Angeles International Airport has been driving them crazy.

One woman in her 70s said the din had become so intense that she was forced to abandon an upstairs bedroom in favor of a soundproofed basement “bunker,” which even then did not free her from the head-splitting sound of passing super-jets.

The noise-haters wrote and telephoned everyone they could think of and, at one point, even asked me for help. I, of course, responded with a reckless, shot-from-the-hip column that mocked their efforts and laughed at their tears. Nothing personal. That’s my job.

Subsequent to all that, however, an investigator for the FAA determined that the complainers were right and proposed a modest change in the flight plan of jetliners arriving at LAX from the north. The little people of the Highlands and the Canyon danced for joy in the forest groves.

Then, suddenly last week, for reasons known only to him, one Richard Cox, the FAA’s air traffic manager for Los Angeles, bounced the investigator from his job, threw out his recommendation and declared the investigation closed.

His own noise samplings, Cox said, revealed that “there is no appreciable difference between the aircraft noise and ambient noise for the area.” Then he added more specifically that the ambient noises included “birds, dogs, cars and wind.”

This conclusion naturally intrigued me due to my mistaken belief that wind, for instance, was generally pretty quiet, with the possible exception of those times it became a howling gale that uprooted trees and tore roofs from houses. It intrigued me enough, in fact, to spend time in Calabasas Highlands, listening.

Before I did, however, I conducted some independent research on decibelic excesses in our fortissimo society. Well, actually, I looked up “noise” in the Encyclopedia Americana and discovered, among other things, that excessive noise causes irritability, tension, nervousness and anxiety.

I further learned that the Mabaans, a primitive tribe in relatively noise-free southeastern Sudan, do not suffer from either coronary heart disease or hypertension. I don’t know what they eventually die of because the encyclopedia didn’t say, but I suspect that boredom may be a factor.

Armed with that useless knowledge, I drove through Calabasas Highlands on different days, parking occasionally to listen. I don’t hear well due to things blowing up in my ears during the Korean War, but I hear well enough to realize how sweet the sound of a 747 flying overhead can be.

Several roared, I mean hummed, by, causing a pleasant vibration not unlike that created by soft music in a romantic setting. You could almost feel the whispery touch of a woman’s fingertips on your cheek.

The jetliners came again and again until I was awash in such ecstasy that I began to sing, but stopped quickly and drove off when I noticed concerned housewives peeking out their windows.

I parked elsewhere and continued enjoying the comforting purr of passing jets until I suddenly began to feel a sense of irritability, tension, nervousness and anxiety. At first, I couldn’t explain the sudden urge to smash and shout, and then it dawned on me.

A damned bird was singing on a tree limb directly overhead!

I covered my ears to shut out the disagreeable cooing of what I determined to be a morning dove, but then a dog began to bark on a hillside overlooking Summit Drive.

The dissonance created by the bird and the dog became so overwhelming that I was finally forced to abandon my post for another street where only the pacifying euphony of a stretch 737 broke the stillness.

Eventually, my rage subsided and my anxiety drifted off like contrails in the wind. I could finally close my eyes and relax on this gray morning of mist that drifted over the. . . .

Wait! What’s that sound, that distant roar drumming over the mountains, growing in intensity, pounding at my windshield?

I believe it’s the mist.

Sure enough, the drizzle was creating a noise so penetrating that even the tranquilizing murmur of a DC-10 could not counteract it.

I left Calabasas Highlands in disgust, convinced that the FAA’s Richard Cox is right and his detractors are wrong. The noise of the jetliners is no problem at all.

But we’re going to have to do something about that damned drizzle.