By DOROTHEA NORDSTRAND

Living across the street from Green Lake, we have become accustomed to various disturbances and take them in our stride. We currently have a bongo drummer who has taken a position next to the lifeguard's chair at East Green Lake bathing beach. We hear his drumming every few days.

As bongo drummers go, he's pretty good. It's only after several hours and the beat begins to throb in our heads that we lose patience.

My husband Vern walks down and reminds him that there are people in the area whose peace he is disturbing.

So far it has been perfectly amiable and he packs it in for that day. A few days later, one of us will remark, "Our drummer boy is back," and the beat goes on.

We are also treated to loud music from car radios whose owners are parked in the lot beside the field house. That isn't too bad, unless there are several cars and they are all tuned to different stations. We worry about the hearing of the young people assaulting their ears with such volume.

There is a class in martial arts that has chosen the patch of lawn directly across from our home on which to practice their intimidating shouts as they chop and kick. They are fun to watch, and we envy them their energy and flexibility and wish we could do as well.

In daylight hours, none of this is particularly annoying, but sometimes the karate group shows up at daylight and we wake to grunts and shouted "hai"s.

The car radios blast at all hours, and our bongo man sometimes forgets to go home, especially during pleasant weather, when he seems to go into some kind of trance and forgets time completely.

The happening a few nights ago was a little different. At 2 a.m., we were awakened by what was obviously "live" music: drums, a sax, a clarinet, and another instrument or two. They played music from the forties and fifties, which under other circumstances would have won our applause, but not at that time of the night.

Even so, we listened patiently and with pleasure for almost an hour.

When the first real break came in the concert, Vern leaned out our bedroom window and yelled: "PLEASE! We're trying to sleep."

There was complete silence for a moment, and then we heard the sweet strains of "Goodnight, Ladies," gradually fading away into silence.

We were charmed with the graceful "apology."

Dorothea Nordstrand is a resident of the Green Lake neighborhood.