If we are in our apartment and doing something calm and quiet enough, we hear the deep, percussive thud of the cannon at noon.
In my city they fire off a cannon at noon.
If we're down at the foot of the old city, among the vegetable and flower markets, and noon hits, it sometimes scares the bejeezus out of me. But it scares less and less bejeezus out of me because I have a dwindling amount of bejeezus in me. Either way, it's nice to know it's noon. For people who get up rather late, noon always has a pleasant feeling of there being plenty of day left.
I've heard a fair share of church bells at noon over the years, and they can be a lot of fun and quite pretty, but they can also be a bit uncertain that they're about noon until you've listened for awhile. And sometimes it turns out they're not about noon at all!
Not so with a cannon.
No, one cannon once a day gets right down to it. Absolutely no chance of mistaking that one. Just a single arresting second, a little less bejeezus, and you're on your way.
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