Waking Up

Aside from alarm clocks and smoke alarms which are designed to wake anyone up, it is amazing what humans are able to sleep through. Think of the noises that homeless people sleep through. Think of the noises we sleep through. I’m always amazed to hear that there had been a wild thunderstorm that I had slept through. I’ve slept through earth quakes, sirens and I once slept through a train wreck that took place two hundred yards away from one house I lived in.

This topic of weird sleep habits came up at dinner with the guys the other night. One fellow spent his summers as a smoke jumper in Alaska. Upon his return home his girlfriends were always shocked to wake up and find him sleeping on the floor. He would unconsciously get out of bed in the middle of the night go back to sleep on the floor since he was used to sleeping on the ground. It would take months for him to get used to a mattress.

Another of the fellows would sleep well unless someone ran water somewhere in the house. The sound of water would wake him up in a panic and this was because he had a military career in a submarine where the sound of water running meant there was a catastrophic breach and a watery grave wasn’t far behind.

For me it is the wind. I can sleep through nearly anything but when I hear the wind I can’t sleep. I have had enough wind damage with trees falling on my house and out buildings. I’ve had roofs blow off out buildings and had shingles ripped off. The sound of wind to me means I will have to assess and fix something. Things I have spent building to code sometimes weren’t strong enough to withstand the wind. Trees that I loved were uprooted or snapped in half. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to live in twister country.