Reality Bites By James Norton

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

You know for a while there, I thought I was losing my mind. Every once in a while a jet would fly what seemed to be 30 feet above the house. It was so loud you would swear it was about to rip the roof off the house. So I would not think of it all that much because it, quite frankly, didn’t happen so often that you would notice it, really.

Then it started happening more and more. I started asking others if they heard it too, and they had.  I wasn‚Äôt alone, and I wasn‚Äôt crazy.  Well maybe I‚Äôm a little crazy, but I doubt it can be attributed to planes flying low overhead.  That‚Äôs a separate Reality Bites, thank you.

So as this became a bigger and more apparent issue, it became obvious that it is not just people on Winter Hill – where I have lived my entire life. People on Prospect Hill and the Ten Hills have also been affected.  Then I hear that the Massport Authority says it is due to the ‚Äúweather and wind patterns‚Äù.

I mean really, I have lived here all 39 years of my life. Has there all of a sudden been a shift in global weather patterns in just one year to cause this?  Are they actually going to say this is the only year in the last 30-40 years that we have ‚Äúunusually high‚Äù Northwest wind patterns?  Are they serious?  I don‚Äôt know about you, but I am not buying it. 

Won’t that be attractive to potential buyers of property here, especially at Assembly Square? Hey, come live here, and don’t mind the planes so close you can wave at the people sitting in window seats.

I have flown quite a bit over the years, and one of the advantages to having an airport along the ocean is that you can have planes take off and land over water instead of someone‚Äôs $650,000 (or more) home.  I can‚Äôt personally remember any flight I have ever been on that ascended over Somerville, not as low as they have been lately.

Look, I don’t care what anyone says. I worked for the commonwealth for a few years, and people who work at state agencies like the Port Authority don’t care much for residents in surrounding cities and towns because they want to make the airlines happy.

So who suffers in the end?  We do, unless we get behind our city leaders and make this an issue that will be more of a headache for the Port Authority than one of the airlines bitching about saving money or making it easier for them to make more of it.

It’s about quality of life for you and me, and we need to come together on this.