Sounds of summer.

I am not now remembering bird songs at dawn or the lapping of waves against a shore or the rustle of leaves in sunlight, but the sounds we listened to in a city of sweltering summers.

We lived on a treeless street far from water, in a huge complex of four- or five-room apartments built in the shape of a squared-off "U." From an open kitchen window you could hear in summer the alley noises of local commerce: the clomp of a milkman's horse; the crack of the iceman's chisel; the cry of the old-rags, old-iron man.

Most of the sounds I remember came from the front of the building. Since the outpourings of a television set lay far in the future and even a crystal-set radio was rare, we had to generate our own noises. Those that were musical came from an upright piano on which children practiced their Bach for Beginners or banged out "Chopsticks"; or from a wind-up Victrola that played my father's Caruso records. Since there was no air conditioning, our windows were open to possible breezes; and also to our neighbors' audible joys or sorrows: their outbursts of anger, laughter, or tears. Even old Mr. Eckhau's snoring, for his bedroom window was only a few feet from our kitchen table.

A court-building like ours provided a protected and focused area for anyone on foot and with something to sell. We represented a concentration of prospective customers. But first you had to get our attention. Each purveyor had his own "commercial." A man with a crate of Michigan strawberries would stand in the middle of the courtyard hollering to housewives above him, "Strawberries, ladies! Fresh strawberries! Just picked this morning."

Two notes from the bell on his cart announced the scissors man, always a very old Italian whose appeal my mother could never refuse, whether or not her shears needed sharpening. A couple of blasts on a tin horn? The Sunday-morning balloon man. Lucky the child whose father could spare a nickel and felt a generous impulse. A plaintive "Santa Lucia" meant the organ grinder with his tiny assistant, a red-jacketed monkey who would tip his bellboy's cap if you were brave enough to offer him a penny.

On a hot summer night the singer of sad songs might appear and stand there in the pale light of the street lamp, wearing his shabby tweed jacket even though the night air was heavy and humid. Beside him on the sidewalk lay his limp cap with the dirty lining. In his whiskey tenor he would sing songs about a boy named Danny and a woman called Kathleen.

I learned by listening carefully that this Danny Boy was going away, his leave-taking a source of sorrow to the one he left behind. "The summer's come and all the roads are calling./It's you must go and I must bide." And Kathleen? She was someone who clearly was not happy where she was. But someone vowed to make things better for her, promising to "take you back, Kathleen/To where your heart will feel no pain./And when the fields are fresh and green/I will take you to your home again."

Most of all this singer loved his mother. His recital always ended with a song about her. His tearful tenor would "bless the dear fingers so toil-worn for me," and assure her that he loved "the dear silver that shines in your hair/The brow that's all furrowed and wrinkled with care." In a final burst, as through his heart would break, he prayed, "God bless you and keep you, Mother Machree!"

Then he would stand there, looking up at the lighted windows of our apartments. A few heads would appear and a little rain of paper-wrapped pennies and nickels would fall near his cap. I remember asking, "Will the man go home now and give this money to his mother?"

My father told me, "Not necessarily."

After the man left the courtyard, in the absence of anything to turn-on or other communication channels to pursue, sometimes my mother played his songs, and we stood around the piano trying to sing them.