Hard of Listening

   Part of the aging process is some loss of hearing.    So probably I have lost some of my hearing ability in the higher frequency ranges.   In a piece on NPR the other day they aired  a tone in the 30,000 Hz range to which I was totally deaf.   Apparently teenagers can hear this frequency very well and shopkeepers have used this noise to disperse rowdies hanging out at their stores.

     I suspect that I have lost some of my hearing from my days driving an old John Deere tractor that cranked out over 100 decibels of sound.  After 8 to 10 hours on the tractor in a day my ears would be ringing and there was at least a temporary loss of some hearing.

     During my "annual" physical my doctor remarked with shock how much wax was built up in my ears.   Probably this reduced hearing ability so thankfully the nurse did a de-wax job and now I supposedly can hear better.   However, perhaps my problem is not one of being hard of hearing but one of being hard of listening.   My wife Nancy has suggested I am hard of hearing, but I suspect that I am also failing to focus as well.   Whatever the case, I am making a resolution to be more focused on listening!