Sound travels freely over water, but the noise of the nearby highway has faded into the background.  Maybe my brain has figured out how to filter it.  I point my kayak into the narrow side-channel - a connector to a quiet inlet off of the main lake.  MSL follows in her own boat.  We move nearly silently.

There’s enough water to float us - but just. In the dry weeks of late summer, this passage is not always open.  There’s another way around - a wider, deeper channel where the pontoons, fishermen, and the flotillas of party paddlers go, but I like this route better.  The woods close in on both sides - a tree tunnel not much wider than my paddle. Fallen branches under the surface gently bump our bottoms.  We duck under intricate spider webs which catch flies, moths, and sunlight.  

Our paddling is not aggressive, and while we occasionally make conversation, we both are content to follow each other into the back-bays where we sit, float, watch, and listen. If you remain still long enough, nature decides it can trust you, and life goes on with its living, paying you no mind.    

With only a few gentle steering strokes, I have enough momentum to glide through the channel and emerge into the protected bay.  There’s a blue heron closer than fifteen feet, fishing.  We quietly park our paddles and watch it. 

The heron wades, its long legs stepping in slow motion, the picture of patience.  Somehow, it manages to be both gangly and graceful.  We watch for minutes.  It sees things that we don’t in the water - and then a quick strike.  The bird’s needle-thin head plunges and reappears with barely a sound or splash - a silvery tail twitching in its beak.  It’s like the water wasn’t disturbed at all.

We’re the only humans in this calm and protected part of the lake, but we’re hardly alone.  Minnows school in the sunlit shallows. Turtles bask upon rocks and stumps, and a furry critter swims under the tangle of a fallen tree.  

It’s not a silent place, but the sounds all point toward peacefulness.  A stick snaps on-shore - something moving through the wood.  Maybe that buck we’ve seen before.  A fish nips a water bug from beneath the surface. It sounds like a soft finger snap. The buzz of late-summer cicadas.  Crickets.  Birdsong. 

And Ozzy Osbourne.  

“ALL ABOARD, HA HA HA HA!”  The opening shout of “Crazy Train” - his 1980 heavy metal classic.

It kinda wrecks the mood.

There’s a bike trail in the woods just out of sight of the water, connecting the lake to town, and since bluetooth speakers have become popular, it seems every third biker has one - riding over the river and through the woods, blaring their own personal soundtrack. They’re an obnoxious intrusion into my personal silence.  

Ozzy starts sharp, dopplers to flat, then fades as the cyclist passes, but soon enough another follows - disturbing the peace and creating a nuisance.  

I’m a cyclist, too.  And I can’t count how many times have I approached another rider from behind, repeatedly shouting, “on your left” as I try to pass, but they can’t hear me with their speakers blasting.  One time I encountered a couple on the trail, riding side by side, both had speakers.  He was rocking out to Foreigner, she to some bouncy pop song.  Side by side.  The cacophony was enormous. 

You can’t blame this noise pollution on young people. It’s not the millennials and it’s not the teenagers of today - whatever their generation is called - they wear earbuds for their music.  

Sit by the bike trail and take note of who these noisy riders are: overwhelmingly male, 45-60 years old. My contemporaries.  Softening ex-athletes with paunchy stomachs, gray hair and saggy tits. Fellas of a responsible, respectable age who might otherwise be looked to for wisdom and leadership are the ones out there rocking the Journey, Kiss, Queen . . . the music of their - our - adolescence.  

After living for five decades, it’s hard to not carry around a bit of hubris - to think we’ve got things figured out and our way is the right way.  But we’re mistaken if we believe that everyone else wants to listen along with us, and we’re mistaken if we think it is an improvement to add Foghat to the natural soundscape.

I’m a music lover, too, but there’s a time and a place, and this peaceful woodland lake isn’t it.  

The heron wasn’t into 80’s rock. It squawked an objection, unfolded its wings, and took off for a quieter piece of shoreline.