The Twelve O'clock Whistle

[Stepmac]

Okay, you old folks...who recalls the Twelve O'clock Whistle? Every single city or town had the twelve o'clock whistle and we all heard it daily. It was usually a siren and not a whistle, but it blared and could be heard for miles. It was so loud that we often jumped, but we knew what it was. It was officially noon. It might have not actually have been noon, but it was close enough. Every man in town would take out his pocket watch and set it to noon. Business owners would set the clock on their wall to noon. House wives would set the clock on the kitchen to noon. That way everybody in town worked off of the same time whether it was right or not. It was right for them. One could hear the sound of the twelve o'clock whistle for miles. To me, it meant that someone in government was watching over for us. It told us the time.

I cannot recall when the twelve o'clock whistle stopped wailing. I think in the seventies sometime. The time was told to us by something in space. I miss that whistle tho. I caused us to do something together. To set the time, so that we could all get along.