If I didn’t live way out here in the country, I would have assumed that the racket coming from out beyond the high weeds came from someone playing with an electronic game. That’s what it sounded like, and in the olden days I might have shouted, “You kids get out of my yard, with your Pong and your Pac-Man and your Space Invaders!”

Okay, I know it’s a little far-fetched to picture me shouting anything at anyone, much less chasing away kids playing with their X-Box or their i-Pod or some other e-toy. I would have thought it but not said it. It would have been like chasing a finch out of the walnut tree.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what I was hearing. It might have sounded like R2-D2 at his most loquacious, but it was actually a bird singing joyously in the summer breeze. It was the same sound, but from a different source. Why does that make it easier to take? Are birds more acceptable neighbors than people?

Obviously, the answer in my case is yes. Once it registered that I was hearing a songbird’s call, I sat and enjoyed it. It still sounded like a cell phone gone amok, but now that I knew what it was I liked it.

You’re going to have to draw your own cosmic conclusion from this little tale. This is my day off. But let me add that when the fireworks started going off tonight, I only worried for a minute about what might happen to my high and dry weeds should anything combustible go astray. Then I just let it go.