“[Long ago] horse bells were [not] just ornamental….Sleighs were fast and silent….People walked in the road, sometimes right in the midst of sleigh traffic….In a few places…there was even a fine for sleighs…not properly equipped with bells.”—Eric Sloane, The Sound Of Bells (1966) Nowadays, when I hear car wheels spinning in loud frustration in foot-deep snow and watch autos ride gingerly on roads lest they slide and crash, sleighs sound even more appealing they do in pieces of Americana such as the one accompanying this post: Currier and Ives’ The Sleigh Race. In the paragraph above, Sloane emphasizes the basic utility of sleighs, but for me there will always be a touch of nostalgia in all of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment