Reveille

When I was in summer camp, which first started when Dwight Eisenhower roamed the halls of 1600, each morning began in identical fashion. The recorded sound of a bugler, playing his wake up anthem, gave notice through the loudspeaker to all those tucked snugly in bed that our slumber had ended. 60 years have passed since I was last at Camp Akiba. That tune still reverberates in my head.

For those who have followed my travails over the past decade and a half, you are well aware of my myriad glaring defects, maybe central being my inability to remain asleep from appetizer through dessert of the night. It is mostly the catalyst for my seeking your company so often. My blog named (in one of its layered meanings) for my mental meanderings occurring well before the sun has decided to rise. My day often commencing while many of you are in the midst of your best rem moments.

But this does not mean that I don't value shut-eye, or that interrupting my attempt to put together a gaggle of hours of continual snoring has no significance to me. And lately, maybe I have been inching in the right direction. Except that the bugler has now re-entered my world.

I reside in a high rise apartment, along with several hundred mostly similar aged folks. Several months ago the fire department was at our building, checking out the fire alarm system. Each unit was entered and dictates given to insure maximum efficiency in the event a calamity occurred. Well, it has.

Over the past several weeks, this system has malfunctioned on a number of occasions, all seemingly going wrong in the deadest part of the dead of the night. Last evening, excuse me, very early this morning, reveille once again blew.

The recorded warning, the directive to stay in our apartments, was accompanied by a piercing series of short extremely loud noises, each one attacking my central nervous system. This continued unabated for several minutes. I imagined what prisoners of war who had been tortured by unrelenting noise that robbed them of their senses must endure.

I loved camp and everything about it. Even the sound of reveille which was, in many ways, sweet music to my ears. It meant that the day's adventures were shortly to commence.

However, I would highly doubt that the deluge of messages certainly received by the office in the middle of last night, were of thanks for letting us begin another day so early. At the camp for old folks now attend, sleeping may well be the favorite activity.

My gentle message to those in charge of this asylum. Fix the system. Before I start playing reveille for you every time I head to the bathroom in the dark of night. Just understand, I know more than a thing or two about too early to call. And two can play this game.

Very truly yours, desperately seeking slumber.