Those noisy Canadians disrupt life’s solitude

Has anyone else noticed how noisy Canadians are when they move through Kasson, or for that matter, other parts of Dodge County?

Yep, they’re rumbling through Kasson blaring their horns, causing gates to drop and lights to go off all around town.

And there are other Canadians that honk their horns as they pass over the county in throngs.

Having grown up in northeastern Minnesota, where we were just a hundred or so miles from the Canadian border, we grew accustomed to their noisy lifestyle.

Most of the Canadians rolling through Kasson are Pacific bound, usually. Our town is accustomed to the clacking of trains as they sound their horns in anticipation of passing over Mantorville Avenue bound for 2^nd Avenue and points west. They’re always in a hurry. I think occasionally the train’s engineers love laying on the horn just to make sure we Yanks are awake.

If one has to stop for those Canucks to pass through, the vehicles and buildings adjacent to the tracks rattle and shake as each car passes.

The other Canadian interlopers are not much better. They fly in a nearly perfect V as though they’re going to attack an enemy on the ground. They have their ongoing honking to signal the rest of the flock where they’re heading.

From now until they make their journey south in the fall, we will put up with these Canadians on our lawns, parks, golf courses and anywhere else that has an adequate food supply and water. (Golfers beware…greens, fairways and tee boxes are prime locations for these winged-Canadians to fertilize as they feed.)

While the rumbling of Canadian Pacific railroad cars quickly exit our communities in Dodge County, they are a welcome bit of racket in that they’re hauling commerce along their route. Boxcars, oil tankers and flat cars move goods to a destination market either to the east or west of Kasson.

Those honking, hissing and defecating Canadian geese are more like snowbirds who head south before the winter snows and back north to get away from the hot and humid southern climes.