Sept. 28, 2007 - 20:36 MDT

THE FOUNDLING

There was a mite that lived in my left ear, oh, for many a year. It told me what was going around me in the world, imperfectly because it was getting old like me.

Funny thing about it was that I couldn't hear on the telephone with it, but made do as our phone has a degree of amplification. But what made it crazy was trying to remember where I was when I took it off after I hung up. I am a type who walks while he talks.

One day I was busy doing things when a phone call came in and Heather handed me the phone and said something on the order of, "Here, you talk to him." Now who the him was to talk to remains not in my memory, nor whether it was important or not. When I tried to find my hearing aid, it was not to be found. Heather and I did the fine tooth comb operation over the premises, several times over the next few days. When first missed we went through the trash to make sure it wasn't there and it wasn't.

Much of that story is in my entry I made after we went into the hearing aid place.

'TIL IT RETURNED

So the hearing aid came in and I went in and got fitted and the new one tweaked to give me the maximum ability to hear things. One trouble though, the ear mold didn't quite fit but a trip in to the place with a slight adjustment it fit.

So, I have been living it up to the supreme extent, hearing things I hadn't heard for years, such as crickets at night and birds chirping.

And then the other night when we were watching a re-run of Northern Exposure (which I can now follow from an easy chair in the living room rather than on a stool at the edge of the TV set, the epsiode with the piano tuner came on. I liked it the first time I saw it, got a charge and a bunch of laughs along the episode and with my hearing the way it was even back then - I didn't get much out of the music.

Which reminds me, I must look up on google and try to find out what piece of music was played by the tuner and Marilyn.

Before my hearing got so bad I loved to listen to music, and often was transported to paradise much as I was when teenage was my baliwick. Music struck deep into my heart and soul, and due to the fact that I had no talent and couldn't carry a tune, all I could do with music was listen to it and float on the highest cloud of joy. One of my very favorites of all times is a piece by J.S. Bach called, "Jesu joy of man's desiring." played on a grand theater or church organ. The intricacies of the melody, ascending and descending in swirls of sound transport me.

So the end of this story is that tonight I decided to write the address of Fauquet who lives in Amiens, France into the loose leaf notebook I keep for such things. I was thinking at the moment it had been a long time since I used it. On opening it, down in the middle of it nestled my hearing aid.

Thinking back I do remember Heather giving me the phone to take a call, she said she put the phone in my hand and I disappeared into my office (room) and I know why, thinking back, she was listening to the TV so I headed for silence. I was probably finished with the notebook not closing it yet but must have laid my hearing aid down on it and later closed it and put it away.

After the fact sleuthing sometimes seems like a sorry excuse, but at least I now know that I hadn't taken leave of my senses. but do I have a memory of doing that ? Heck no, not the foggiest - - - just looking back and deducing things a bit.

Do I have plans for the lost object ? Yes I do, I shall keep it for a spare as I can have it sent in to the factory and for a modest sum have it refurbished and brought back to the near new condition. It is over ten years old and feedback was becoming somewhat of a problem. I do plan to take good care of THE FOUNDLING . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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