You’ve seen “Its a Wonderful Life,” yes? The Christmas-themed Frank Capra move starring Jimmy Stewart? From 1946.

Well, of course you have. Unless you’re so young you remember only this stingy era of “one showing per year” … NBC or somebody owns the rights to the film, and doles it out (once, and only once per year) like the movie was 14-carat gold. Which it is, but before some modern-day Mr. Potter got hold of the flick, it would be shown about 50 times a year on 20 channels between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

I digress.

I live in downtown Long Beach. One block from the Blue Line and its clanging bell, and a mile from the Port of Long Beach, and the Queen Mary and the docking space where Carnival Cruises parks one of its liners and a dozen enormous cargo ships come and go every day …

And I am reminded of an exchange between Stewart’s “George Bailey” and his dopey “Uncle Billy.”

George: You know what the three most exciting sounds in the world are?

Billy: Uh-huh. Breakfast is served, lunch is served, dinner …

George: No, no, no, no! Anchor chains, plane engines and train whistles.

Stewart’s George Bailey dreams of seeing the world, but circumstances intervene, and …

Anyway, here in downtown Long Beach, I sometimes find myself with some aurally-induced George Bailey impulses to just pick up and go somewhere. Anywhere. Far away. Something impulsive, no question.

But these thoughts have triggers. A couple of the “most exciting” sounds.

–The clanging bells of the Blue Line, which inevitably makes a ringing racket as the train turns the corner from the Transportation Mall stop, on the way to the Pacific Avenue stop, two blocks from where I’m sitting.

–The bellow of a ship’s horn as it shoves off — or perhaps enters port.

Both sounds trigger thoughts in a primitive, Pavlovian sense. Of travel. Of movement. Of setting off for somewhere I haven’t been before. (Even though I’m more of a home body than a roamer, no question.)

I’ve heard of merchant ships, for example, that will take on a handful of passengers for some reasonable fee. No amenities, of course, no spa or pool or casino … but a steady pace across the Pacific and to someplace exotic. Shanghai, perhaps? Tokyo? Canton? Hong Kong?

And the Blue Line … it’s not setting off on some long journey. It isn’t going anywhere exotic, unless Compton or L.A.’s garment district fill the bill. But it reminds me of trains. Of the sort that could take me to Chicago out of Union Station. Or the trains that crisscross Europe. The Orient Express. The Trans-Siberian Railroad.

I can see jets as they come in to land at the Long Beach airport, but I can’t hear them. Luckily, I suppose. Or I might just put a handful of clothes in a bag, clear out my savings and bolt. Be on board when one of those big merchant ships blows its horn and powers out into the deep blue sea and I go see worlds unknown.