My daughter and I are not mall people. Or Disneyland people. We like music, but not noise. It was about 10 years ago when we were at the Northridge Mall, or, in her people’s speak, “Like, the Northridge Mall,” when we realized there were six different music venues blaring at the same time.  Each store double door wide open, syncopated fake percussion, strings and brass blared. It was like street toughs took a 55-gallon metal trash can, placed it over your head and shoulders, then pounded it with sticks and shovels, spun you in circles, then laughed at you.  Dear Mr. Boston,  Works for me.  Sincerely,  Kamala Harris  P.S. Little yellow school buses, all in a row. Being positive toward the future. Velcro. Mayonnaise, on my shoulder, makes me happy. Mayonnaise, almost always, makes me high …  P.P.S. I HAVE NUCLEAR CODES! THEY’RE NOT OURS, BUT I HAVE THEM ANYWAY!!! AH! AH!! AHHHH!!!  Thank you, Ms. Missed Being Leader Of The Free World By This Much. Which brings up the question. Why is everyone babbling hysterically? Sadly, I know the answer. Most people are nuts. They don’t seem to notice that the world is grabbing them by the ankles, holding them upside down and stroking their fur in the wrong direction. There’s an ex-wife/honeymoon joke there somewhere, but, I’ll avoid it.  Remember those old, annoying bicycle bells on the handlebars? You’d push this little chrome spring lever and it would make this simpering, pretend Good Humor Ice Cream Man sound. Add an ancient A-oooogah truck horn, New York Stock Exchange ticker tape sound effect, background music to the old Alfred Hitchcock “Psycho” movie (the shower stabbing scene) and some good old Wagner and you have the opening to the AM radio weather report.  “IT’S GOING TO BE 72 TODAY!!! BREEZY ON THE COAST AND IN THE VALLEYS, WHICH MEANS, SOMEWHERE, IT’S NOT GOING TO BE BREEZY!!! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S DECENT WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!! RUN!! GET OUT OF YOUR CARS AND RUN!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!”  When’s the last time I heard a report about sports, politics, macaroni salad recipes or the national employment report when it wasn’t presented as if it were an exorcism?  I go into a tire store, there’s a stereo AND two TV’s, different stations, playing at the same time, within inches of each other. Add to the orchestration, pneumatic wrenches, which is just one consonant off from being pneumatic wenches. It’s like everyone is getting paid by both the word and decibel, not to be confused with Jezebel, who married King Ahab in the Bible.  Life is noisy. Confusing.  Years ago, when the Canyon Country earthquake struck in 1994 (it was so powerful, it moved stuff around so eventually, scientists decided to move it to northeast Santa Clarita), we had the old Signal newspaper offices on Creekside. We had to abandon The Signal building. Well. I didn’t. I was walking around the offices, all by my lonesome. It was so — eerily — quiet. All those years of working in that building, I never realized how much I was submerged in white noise. No almost inaudible buzzing of overhead neon lights. No computer hum. No A/C. No TV mindlessly stuck on ESPN, surrounded by mouth-breathing sports staff staring at Antarctica playing Wales in The World Cup. Certainly no presses running. Post nuclear war silence. It was peaceful. I remember sitting in my chair, in the dark, eyes closed, smiling.  I’m not the complete Crabby Appleton (cartoon character Tom Terrific’s arch-nemesis). I love the calming sounds of ocean waves lapping against the shore or the comforting thump of the heater kicking on at 4 in the morning. I don’t like someone 340 years old sitting behind me in the theater, taking 20 minutes to unleash a hard peppermint candy from a brittle cellophane wrapper. I don’t like someone walking behind me in the park, late at night, wheezing. And slurping. And mumbling, “Ah-blah. Ah-blah. Ah-blah.” I don’t like people saying, “Okey-Dokey,” or, for that matter, thinking it. You can tell when someone is thinking, “Okey-Dokey.” They sport a vacant smile, like anticipating a doggie treat. I’ve never seen it at our local City Council meetings because, frankly, I’ve never been to one. But, I’ve heard stories.  I think there should be a National “Shush” Day. Of course, the staggering amount of useless government employees would want it off with pay, so they could go hot rod around town in their $250,000 Winnebagos with the stereo blasting, “down at the Copa, Copa Cabana.” I think, to help balance the budget, we should have a National “Shush” Day where everyone just dials the amp down a couple notches. Government workers would have to pay back double their salary. Teachers? Triple. No. Wait. We’ll have a National “Shush” Decade.  I’d outlaw Whoopee Cushions, “The View,” rap music and Joe Biden screaming at the porpoises from the safety of the Delaware shoreline. I’d forbid wind farms and their narcotizing subsonic call, “Come, bald eagles. Fly into my turbines and become one with The Light.” I’d make it illegal to make a raspberry noise, although, I’d dearly miss doing a premeditated and over-startled double-take at the person uttering one. At a baseball game? You’d have to whisper, “Hey batter-batter-batter …”  Noise shouldn’t bother me as much as it does, for, as I approach Middle Age, I am slightly hard of hearing. When I confess, “hard of hearing” in front of my daughter, she rolls her eyes, coughs up a fur ball and does an extended 40-minute Death Scene from “Camille.” I don’t know why. Boredom. Laziness. Taking the roundabout way to 100. But, of late, I’ve started to cup a palm outside an ear and leave the “T” off of “WHAT?” Without the “T,” you’d think it would sound like a baby crying — “WAAAHHHH.”  It doesn’t.  It’s more like an abbreviated, “Wuh,” which rhymes with “Duh…”  John Boston’s johnlovesamerica.com is now up and running and filled with a terrible resolve. See for yourselves. The post John Boston | Tush. Shush. Let’s Have a Day of Quiet. appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.