Of Buses and Bells

Hanover sounds like Paradise. Sometimes.

IT IS A PERFECT summer day in Hanover. The College has seldom looked more beautiful. Dartmouth Hall gleams in the bright sunlight, and Baker Tower lifts its pinnacle far into the blue sky.

Over at the Hanover Inn, the outdoor terrace is full to capacity. A hundred people are enjoying lunch al fresco. Wait staff, some of who look very much like Dartmouth students, hurry among the tables, bearing succulent dishes. There are flowers everywhere. Paradise!

Until the serpent turns up, that is. This serpent is very large, very shiny, and very noisy. It propels itself with a big diesel engine; it sports a complete set of rubber tires. People who dislike metaphors would call it a tourist bus.

By any name, it's spoiling Paradise. Having lumbered up Wheelock Street, it parks almost in front of the Inn. The passengers hurry inside to use the bathrooms. The bus uses the ambient air for its bathroom, putting out fumes from the throbbing diesel in order to run the massive air conditioner that cools the empty interior. Somehow the terrace is less delightful today.

Another scene. Now it's a perfect fall day. Nine o'clock classes have just let out, and streams of students cross the campus in every direction. Today there's a little extra zing to their steps.

What causes that zing? The College bells do. From Baker Tower descends a truly glorious sound. This is no tinkly glockenspiel sort of carillon; Baker has 17 large and noble bells. Peter Yoo '98, the current bellmaster, is having them play a wonderful, joyful, tuneful piece by Bach. You wish it would never end. I do, anyway.

Hanover has many other sounds, of course. Some are standard American noise, like the far-carrying intermittent squeal a kindly federal government requires all trucks to emit when they back up. Some are special Hanover noise, such as the carefree young voices of students playing Frisbee on the Green, or the faintest hum of conversation from an outdoor class.

But it's the two extremes best and worst that I want to focus on. The bus, of course, I want to silence. The bells but one thing at a time. Diesel engines first.

There are at least two ways to calm the roaring buses. One is to invoke an existing Hanover regulation. In May 1997 the town recognized the existence of noise pollution, and adopted a set of standards. Under these regs the Inn corner is to be free of any sound louder than 73 decibels. That's not what you would call quiet (a vacuum cleaner weighs in at 70 decibels), but I suspect it's a good bit lower than what some of those buses actually put out.

The only trouble with the town regs is that they have never been called on. Case One is yet to come. One way of preserving a modicum of calm on the Inn terrace might be to get a town official out there with a sound meter.

But it's the second way that really excites me. This one requires nothing but a curbside meter of a type that already exists. Most of the parking meters sell you time; this kind sells you electricity. The meter has the capacity to accept a lot of quarters, and in return it gives you a measured amount of 110 or 220-vol telectricity. Suppose one were installed a little way down the street from the Inn. Try the scenario now. A bus.pulls up. The driver instandy kills his roaring motor. He hops out, even ahead of the tourists. He feeds about 20 quarters into the meter and then plugs his bus in. In cool silence it awaits the return of its passengers; on the terrace the lunchers enjoy the food and the view. Paradise regained.

As for the bells, I want more, not less. So do most of the students I've asked. Some even wish the bells were louder. I admire bellmaster Yoo's skill at change-ringing; I approve his willingness to take requests from students, faculty, alumni; I applaud the good taste of the administration in its very modest regulation. The one time Peter got a semi-official semi-request not to play something, it was aimed at Madonna's grungy "Like a Virgin." There can never be too little Madonna.

So what's my gripe? My gripe is tiny and curmudgeonly. It's that these 17 noble bells are so often called on to play "Happy Birthday to You." Sixty times a year, bellmaster Yoo estimates. To place a splendid and solemn carillon at the service of that jingly tune is somewhat like requiring Rembrandt to paint greeting cards, or forcing the members of the Supreme Court to dance the can-can.

Fewer diesels, more bells. Just one or two happy birthdays a year. O that were Paradise enow.