Is it noon yet
I have heard the noon cannon. Not often and not recently but it was something I witnessed at different times during my life. Mainly as a tourist. I started thinking about it and I realized that back in the day this was the best method to let people know that noon was at hand. Fire off a random canon instead of doing things that seem simpler. Things like ringing a bell or waving a flag. You can hear the big boom a lot further. And given the background that we have in Canada of keeping the military around for whatever reason almost every military base at one time or another had a noon signal. I guess someone had to synchronize to watch is. And the tradition carries on in certain cities. Coming to mind we have Halifax and I think Louisburgh and Saint Johns and Montreal and Toronto and Vancouver. The list becomes unwieldy. Each city wants to keep traditions alive mainly for visitors. After all watching someone load the gun and pull the lanyard and plug their ears fun I guess. For those in the local area it serves as a way of letting them know that it is time to go and find the lunch box. Now I have also lived in factory towns where they blew a horn or sounded a siren. Neither of those have the same month as a blast of a cannon. That might be an idea for a road trip. Go off and find out where the time signals are still used. On the railway there was a signal that came down the wire as they say at lunchtime. The station agent could then synchronize the clock that hung on the wall so that anyone coming in from the train could find out the current time. A useful way of doing things when you want the trains to be where they’re supposed to be at the right time. Collisions are so messy. And passengers like the trains to run on time without the interference of a government. But I digress. Locally we have nothing like that. I think we still use sun in the sky as a way to mark the hours.
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