People take nostalgia ride by reminiscing 10 sounds they used to hear in times past but don't anymore

Cherishing the sounds of the past.

We are surrounded by many sounds in our everyday lives, from the chirping of birds to the sound of cars. One could say that humans are exposed to a wide array of them every day. Over the years, knowingly or unknowingly, we begin to associate certain sounds with certain periods of our life. We only seem to recall the peculiar sound when we chance upon it much later in life, at which point it brings back many memories linked to it. u/wolf805 sent the Reddit community on a trip down memory lane by asking, "What's a sound you miss that you don't hear anymore?" Here are 10 of the best answers that people offered.  

1. The mysterious sound of snowfall

So I grew up in a place where it would snow a lot. I would spend a lot of time just sitting in the forest while it snowed. The sound is hard to describe but everything is so muffled that it is this beautiful near silence. I miss that a lot. u/Left_Apparently. I moved to Kentucky from Georgia in '93. The first snowfall of our first winter there, I nearly froze to death on the back porch, absolutely mesmerized by the whispery sound of it. u/punksmostlydead 

2.  The harmonious sound of a piano 

My mom was a piano teacher but she also played regularly (and well) just for the enjoyment of it. She passed away years ago but I miss hearing her play. I was walking my dog recently and heard someone playing piano in a house in my neighborhood. It brought a smile to my face. I hope they were enjoying it as much as she did. u/retailguy_again. My mom was a pianist too! She also played the organ and she'd practice really late at night in the church since she didn't want to be interrupted. A lot of the service had to be religious stuff, but she picked some epic preludes and postludes. I'd love to hear her rock out on Saint-Saëns "March Heroique" again. u/lizardingloudly

3. The noise of typewriting

The clatter of typewriters and adding machines in an office. u/jnrdvbfghj. Long after our office had disposed of all the electric typewriters, imagine my shock when I strolled in one day and the first sound I heard was someone banging on a typewriter. Turns out, I hadn't missed it one bit. And I couldn't imagine why someone was using one. We hired this guy, Randy. Randy had come out of retirement to take this job to launch a new component of the program. He requested a typewriter as a joke, but they dug into storage, found one, cleaned it up and placed it on his desk. He used to type Post-it notes and leave them for me. u/Dogzillas_Mom

4. Father's voice 

My dad's voice and my sisters singing. u/TheDisasterItself. I lost my pops back in 1995 and I would pay anything to hear his voice again. Sometimes, when I laugh in a certain way, I can hear him through my own voice, but I wish I had a video with audio. All the films of my youth are in Super 8mm but my 9-year-old sister does have some from the early 90s on VHS, but I'd be afraid to play them due to their likely fragility. u/blackpony04

5. Bugs on a car windshield 

Well, I don't MISS this sound but it is terrible that it doesn't happen anymore. When I was a kid, if you drove anywhere, you'd splat bugs against the windshield on highways and country roads. Little bugs, big bugs, sometimes so gross! These days, you can drive 20 miles without a bug hitting a windshield and it does make me very sad that there don't seem to be the insects (nor the variety) around like there used to be. I hate it when road crews mow and chop down every wildflower and weed, bush and tree along fence lines. Nothing left for the bugs/birds/creatures. u/Ok-Thing-2222

6. The jingle of keys

Related, I lost some hearing in Iraq twenty years ago. Got hearing aids a month ago. Heard my keys jingle. Forgot that keys jingled. Wasn't a sound I missed or anything. When I heard it, I was like, "Oh yeah. Of course, keys jingle." But I hadn't heard it in a while. u/inlike069. I carry my keys on a clip on my belt loop. Usually, [I] have them tucked in next to my wallet in the corner of my rear pocket. When they work loose, my wife can identify me 100 feet away, around a corner, by the rhythm of my keys. She has proven it a dozen times over 40 years of marriage. Now, my oldest son, likewise, has a wife who knows the swinging jingle of her man. Odd little thing to pass on. u/skaote

7. Parents in the morning 

Hearing my parents around the house in the morning - dishes being put away, the TV turning on to watch the news, breakfast being made, dishes being washed and their voices as they talked to each other and the cat. I never realized how much I liked listening to that before I would go downstairs to start my day until I moved out. Now, I'm 1,000+ miles from home and don't know if or when I'll have a chance to hear it again. u/Unhygienictree

8. Instant messaging notifications 

I weirdly feel nostalgic for AOL Instant Messaging sounds and the sound my old PC made when I turned it on, along with the weird music picks that came with this little activity CD that somehow came into my possession. I have no idea how else to describe that last one. I just had a little disc with activities for kids and it came with a bunch of different musical pieces. u/ICUMF1962 

9. Chirping of crickets

My first thought was crickets, but when I think about the reason I no longer hear crickets quite as much as when I was a child, I realize it's not because there are fewer crickets but because our house is always sealed up - there are few months comfortable with windows open and during most of those months, the open windows allow pollen to settle everywhere. So, 95% of the year, our windows are closed. Also, our basement is finished. Growing up, we had an unfinished basement, and my mother did not use air conditioning at all. Windows were always open; therefore, we heard the crickets from the moment they first started chirping. u/CurlsintheClouds

10. Bobwhite quail calls 

Bobwhite quail sounds in the mornings at my grandma and grandpa's house. They moved to Lakeland, Florida, in 1978. It's a large sprawling city now. But although they didn't live "out in the country," there was still a lot of undeveloped land and wildlife to go with it. It's all gone now. Even most of the orange groves and cattle farms. Just condos and manufactured homes and development as far as the eye can see. u/ReadRightRed99