Moments Of SILENCE

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush honored famed ornithologist and bird illustrator Roger Tory Peterson at a ceremony on the White House grounds. By the time the president finished his introduction, Peterson had identified dozens of birds simply by listening to their sing-song chirp, hoots and mating whistles.

The demise of the songbird population has deprived generations of Floridians of the melodies of the whippoorwill and bluebird. Many readers responded to the Jan. 6 History & Heritage column with lamentations about beloved bird sounds of their youth.

Dorothy Kellogg misses "the quail calling 'bobwhite, bobwhite, poor-bobwhite. There used to be so many. and now there are none near me in northwest Hillsborough County," she writes. "I still hear an occasional chuck-will's-widow," a brown nightjar that sings at dusk. (Hear it online at identify .whatbird .com/obj/352/_/ Chuck-wills-widow .aspx.)

Colleagues and readers enumerated the vanishing sounds of machines:

•The distinctive sounds of rotary dial phones, now relics in museums and antique stores.

•The "pop-pop-pop" discharge of one- and two-cycle gasoline engines.

•The sound of baseball cards flapping against bicycle spokes and the cries of grandchildren being told that a 1954 Hank Aaron rookie card was so sacrificed.

•The ear-splitting and ominous blare of air-raid sirens.

•The irritating sound of a broken phonograph record stuck in a groove (a sound and action that produced two cliches for the English language).

Vendors And Gas Stations

Readers especially miss the distinctive noises produced by man, woman, child and machine.

"One of the sounds I miss is the knife- and scissor-sharpener man, who would push a cart, with a bell in hand, down the residential streets calling out, 'An-yee knives to sharpen,' while ringing the bell," reminisces James Teske, a Tampa resident since 1960. "The clatter of old knives and other metal in his cart jiggling over the rough pavement of ill-set brick pavers conjures an aural vision of 60 or more years ago in Columbus, Ohio."

Sara-Jane Tarr Wilson, a Tampa native, writes, "I remember the vegetable man ringing his bell coming down our street on Davis Islands ... the milkman very early in the morning taking the old bottles and bringing new; the train from a distance; the milkshake mixer running at the Davis Islands Pharmacy; the Avon lady ringing our bell crying out, 'Avon Calling'; the Fuller Brush man pounding on the door; the Charles Chip man honking and honking."

John MacArthur of Lakeland writes, "One of the sounds I miss is the ping of the gasoline pump every time the tab went up another dime. Gasoline prices were in the range of 25 cents per gallon; at today's prices, such sounds would be rather like holding the doorbell."

Whatever happened to the lost voices of gasoline attendants ("Madam, may I check your tire pressure?"), elevator operators ("Second floor, ladies' lingerie, apparel and sundries.") and newsboys (Extra! Extra! Read all about it.")?

Shawn Joy Cline recalls her grandmother's stories of a black-fish-and-produce peddler, Elijah Moore, who sold his goods on the streets of St. Petersburg in the 1940s and '50s.

"He was very tall and wore a top hat, tails and a white apron," she writes. "He pushed his cart down the sidewalks shouting, 'Catch 'em alive; kill 'em dead. You want 'em; I got 'em."

Amid the incessant political commercials surrounding the 2008 election, Donna Parrino is reminded of the commotion of the 1950s.

"I remember sitting on my grandmother's porch on Saturday afternoons and being entertained with all the sounds that paraded by: the produce vendors ... the political 'ads' - no candidate but a large photo atop a car and a very loud sound system."

Street Noises

The back pages of the Tribune hold clues as to what delighted and annoyed readers decades ago.

In 1936, the Tribune reported that the board of aldermen (today's city council) was drafting an ordinance "to take the squawks, shrieks and roars out of street noises and at the same time rid Tampa of many kinds of noise pests."

Pests and noise prevailed.

In 1955, neighbors in the 4800 block of Bayshore Boulevard complained to city police that a nearby drive-in restaurant was making too much noise. Several neighbors confessed to Judge Bob Johnson that it wasn't so much the noise coming from the jukebox as it was the owner, Mr. Falge, "doesn't change the records often enough."

One of the most famous juke artists to emerge from the Tampa Bay area was Hudson Whitaker, better known as Tampa Red.

In the early years of the 20th century, Whitaker migrated to Tampa, where he mastered the slide guitar and honed his blues skills. In Chicago, Tampa Red teamed with pianist Georgia Tom Dorsey to record legendary songs such as "It's Tight Like That" (1928).

In a world of iPods and 24-hour cable television, many readers wished for a return of a sound we rarely hear anymore: silence.

But silence can be measured many ways. About 20 years ago, I participated in a tour of the Everglades. The highlight was an airboat ride (definitely not silent!) and tour by Chief Buffalo Tiger. A Miccosukee Indian, he was born in the Everglades in 1919.

In the middle of a sawgrass marsh, he asked us to listen carefully to the sounds of the swamp.

Silence.

"When I was a boy," he reminded us, "the Everglades were alive with the sounds of birds, insects and many other animals."

Gary R. Mormino directs the Florida Studies Program at University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Send him your memories of