I was walking to my car yesterday in Ontario, CA, at noon and I heard in the near distance church bells being played as a musical tune.
See, when I was a kid in Racine, WI, back in the 1960s, it was pretty easy to hear church bells hitting the hours, and noontime some of them would play a few bars of things. However once we moved to California in 1967, that stopped. I mean, there were churches nearby, but I don't remember hearing any church bells anymore.
At UCLA, my recollection is that Royce Hall played music, even though its bells had failed decades before. I graduated from there in 1977.
Moving to Chicago in the late 1970s I still can't recall hearing much of anything angelic in the air. Occasional gunfire, yes. But no bells.
So it's been a very long time since I last heard any church bells. Have I been missing them because I used to drive around with air conditioning on full blast and the radio or my iPhone playing? Or are they mostly gone? I don't know.
All-in-all, I find that I like it. It seems homey, classy, and very pretty. What have you found in your parts of the world? Do you hear them? Do you recall them? Is it just me? Are they more common than I realize? Or have they mostly disappeared?
As I continue to ponder the world...