Column for Aug. 20, 2009

I often have trouble sleeping. I have for years. It is just one of those things I have come to accept, and I am not sure why I can not sleep well. I can count on one hand the number of times I have woken up in the past two decades and said, "Well, that was a good night's sleep." I have had a sleep study done and I know what the problem is not. Either way, I live with it. Having a five week old baby in the house contributes to this, but I am relatively used to a lack of sleep as it is.

My dog is the beneficiary of a master that does not sleep well. I often take him outside in the middle of the night for him to check his territory, mark his scent, and come back inside. I get to do the same in some regards. I have my little quarter acre of paradise and I get to walk around on my grass, rain or clear skies, warm or cold.

It is on these nightly jaunts onto my kingdom grounds that I have postulated LaPlante's Law. LaPlante's Law basically states that no matter what time of the day or night it is, if I go outside and walk on my front lawn facing Anderson Street, I will see cars on my street or an adjacent street 95+ percent of the time. Seldom will I not hear an automobile coming and watch one pass. This is true whether it is midnight, 2 AM, 4 AM, 6 AM, whatever. I see pick up trucks, cars, police, bicycles, vans, even commercial trucks at all hours of the night. When sitting in my rocking chair feeding Junior in the wee hours of the night, I often hear vehicles passing by my modest home, though I do not count them as conforming to LaPlante's Law if I was not outside at the time.

For a small community, we are a noisy town at night. That is why I still think about and chuckle at the public comments that were at the public hearing a couple of years ago when it was proposed to build an ethanol plant outside of Selma. Don't get me wrong, I was not in favor of the plant being built. However, I thought that some of the comments were outlandish.

From my front lawn on Anderson Street, late at night, I stand and listen. Sometimes I hear the cicadas screaming in the early evening. I often hear crickets chirping late into the night. I can also hear the interstate traffic that is over a mile away from here. I often hear the railroad, since I am only a block away from one set of tracks. I am only a few blocks from the water plant, so I hear its dull roar all night long. I can also see the glow of the lighting from that same facility.

That is why I chuckle. The complaints about the proposed ethanol plant covered such things as alleged noise and light pollution at night. Yet right in the midst of a residential district I hear the noise from the water plant that fills my faucet with clean drinking water. As to the alleged "light pollution" (which is fallacious, in my opinion), my neighbors have been trying to get a street light fixed for about a year now as it is. People want more, not less light along my street. When I think about these ironies, I inwardly snicker to myself and at the folly of human whining. I literally think about this every time I listen to the hum of the water facility and see the non-functioning street lamp.

Like I said, for a small town of only seven thousand people and 4.6 square miles, we have a lot of noise and activity. We have a lot of traffic at all hours of the day and night, even on side roads. Most of that traffic, by the way, ignores the town speed limit. West Anderson Street is one of those routes that has no stop signs along its path, thus attracting rapid cross town traffic.

Though I would enjoy a good night's sleep once in a while, there are several things I love. I love being a daddy to my baby, even if it means middle of the night feedings and diaper changes while listening to automobile and locomotive traffic. I love my jaunts outside with Barack Odoga, who has turned out to be a much better dog than I ever thought he would be. I love the cooler months when I can look into the clear North Carolina night sky and see my old, faithful friend, Orion, in the stars overhead. I love this despite the noise and light pollution of street lights, interstate traffic, freight trains, and water plants. And I love living in a nation in which I have the freedom to own my own quarter acre patch of land to call my own and hang its flag year 'round at my front door.