SPEAK UP I'M HARD OF HEARING!

I don't know about anybody else, but I have started to turn a deaf ear, so to speak, to much of the political jabbering that is going on all around me.  On television, in the newspapers, online . . . we are being constantly assaulted by the noise of the campaigns.  Everybody is talking all at once, making it very hard to hear!

In her later years my grandmother became very hard of hearing.  Indeed it bordered on deafness.  She wore two hearing aids (the old fashioned kind, very bulky, very visible) and she hated them.  They never seemed to work quite right.  She also wore a button on her jacket which read "SPEAK UP I'M HARD OF HEARING!"  Still, much of the time she found it very difficult to understand what was said by others.  And the thing that bothered and confused her most was background noise.

Whenever we went to visit Grandma, we would take her out to eat.  She really enjoyed going to restaurants, except for one thing:  there's nothing noisier than a crowded dining room.  First there's the chatter of staff and patrons, then you add the clatter of dishes and silverware, and, of course, that curse of modern times, Muzak.  To make our meals with my grandmother enjoyable for all of us, we always had to insist on a corner booth.  And then, Grandma had to sit in the corner itself.  That way much of the background noise was blocked out and she could focus on what we were saying.  For Grandma to be able to hear the conversation, she really had to focus and listen.

And so it is in this campaign season--to really hear what the candidates are saying, we have to  listen.  We have to block out all the chatter and jabbering and nonsense, and really focus on the issues.  It's not easy--it never was easy for Grandma, even in the corner booth. But in the end, even though she was almost deaf, she could still hear because she was willing to focus and listen.  Maybe we can also really hear in this campaign season if we are willing to do the same.