
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994                    TAG: 9406150009 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A16    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Medium 
DATELINE: 940615                                 LENGTH:

BLASTING BACK, WITH `THE MIKADO'

{LEAD} As the season shifts and car windows begin to drop, I am reminded again of an article that appeared in a column somewhere in your newspaper a year or two back. I don't recall who wrote it, but I never fail to think of that article when a vehicle comes shuddering within blocks of me, its speakers wide open and the bass beat preceding through the pavement.

For several years my husband and I have been renovating a large Victorian house in a ``transitional'' neighborhood. The first few summers there we were treated to the wonderful sounds of gangster rap from the porch next door. We quickly had to shift my younger son's bedroom because the rude lyrics were waking him up at midnight and later.

{REST} At that time I desperately wanted to put an amphitheater-size speaker on our roof and blast out Wagner's Ring Cycle. Oh, well, I felt the need to display manners and be polite, no matter what the neighbors did.

As I've aged (slightly), I've grown less reticent. While I've not invested in the rooftop system, I have taken, with great pleasure, to cranking my car stereo to its max whenever I enter or exit the neighborhood on these warm, ``windows open'' days. My favorite listening pleasures have been ``Carmina Burana'' and certain selections from ``The Mikado.'' This summer I've become enamored of the soundtrack from Kenneth Branagh's ``Henry V,'' and I rewind my tape to one of the versions of ``Nonnobis, Domine,'' pop the volume button all the way to the right and giggle as heads slowly turn in the park, wondering (I'm sure) what that noise is!

To whoever wrote that article, please give my thanks. That column will stick in my memory until the day I die. It was a joy to realize that I wasn't the only person out there having ugly thoughts of retaliation. And, please, tell the author: I'm fighting back!

THEA KRAUSE SCOTT

Norfolk, June 2, 1994

by CNB