A few days ago, I had the occasion to attend a retirement reception for an old colleague from back in my teaching days.
There were several other retired faculty present at the event and it was great to see them and catch up on the past twenty years, but it was even better to see and talk with the many former students in attendance.
One particular alumnus was a young lady with whom I had the privilege of teaching both in high school and college. We made our way to the edge of the noisy crowd and continued reminiscing for quite some time.
After only a couple of minutes into the discussion, Susan asked, “You’re having trouble hearing me, aren’t you?”
I had to confess that 23 years of teaching shop classes with all the hammering, grinding, chipping and sawing, plus 20 more years of farming with loud machinery, tractors, chainsaws and assorted other loud noises had, indeed, taken a toll on my hearing. Coupled with the background noise of 300 people talking, I apologized for not being able to clearly hear everything she was saying.
She laughed and led me to a quieter part of the room.
“No need to apologize,” she stated.
I sometimes don’t hear everything properly, either. The former student then related an event that should make everyone a bit more tolerant of those of us with less-than-perfect hearing.
Susan hadn’t been out of college too long and was working at a small, meat processing plant that derived most of its business from receiving home-grown beef, swine and sheep, and converting them to packaged and frozen meat cuts. That particular day, she was in charge of phone duties and scheduling animals to be received. As she answered the phone, an obviously older woman stated, in a very quiet and reserved voice, “We have a 2-year-old bull that we need to bring in for slaughter because he has a broken heart.”
Because the plant was noisier than usual that day, Susan replied, “I’m sorry, Ma’am, did you say he has a broken heart?”
After and awkward silence, the lady responded, “Yes.”
Since Susan had worked there for several years, nothing surprised her, so she told the woman that the meat cutters were a little behind and next Thursday, at 8 a.m. would be the earliest they could get to the young bull.
“Is that OK with you?”
Again, a little too much dead air on the phone before the lady answered, “Yes.”
On the following Thursday morning, an older pick-up truck, pulling an even older bumper-hitch trailer, backed up to the unloading chute. Susan went outside to check in the animal. The elderly woman and her husband both exited the truck to coax their young bull out to his appointment. At that point, my former student could see the problem and started laughing as she introduced herself to the woman.
“I thought you said the bull had a broken heart,” Susan said.
Now, the shy little lady turned beet red as she, too, started to giggle.
“No, I said he had a broken part. But, I guess that might cause him to have a broken heart, also.”
