It's the Fourth of July's fault.
Yes, I've blamed the Fourth for many years now, and I won't get over it.
It's the Fourth's fault that I have to wear hearing aids now. The reason I have tinnitus (ringing of the ears).
You see, it happened when I was a smart little 10-year-old, and out playing on the Fourth.
Now, we know that all 10-year-olds know they are smarter than everyone else. That is, until you get to be 12 years old, and you realize 10-year-old's are really dumb.
Anyway, I was 10 and playing outside when a friend and I found a firework. A little red firework with a fuse in it. Well, being as smart as we were, we knew it was a sparkling thing, so we had to find a dark place to shoot it off.
We lived close to a river, and from the side of the river were these large pipes that would drain the overflow of water. They were dry then, and so big that we could go inside and stand up.
And, the pipe was dark inside.
So, we snuck a match out of the house, went into the pipe and lit the firework.
That's when it happened.
It wasn't a sparkler. It was a cherry bomb. At the time, I didn't know what a cherry bomb was. Now I know it's like a small stick of dynamite.
Anyway, it exploded in the pipe, and the only things to grab the noise were our ears.
They really hurt, and we couldn't hear anything for a couple of hours.
We were a little deaf for a couple of days, and then the ringing started. For several days.
We couldn't tell our parents, because we used a match and lit an illegal firecracker. I didn't want to be confined to my room for a month.
Well, either I got used to the ringing, or it backed off, and for many years I was all right.
Then, it got worse as I got older. (As we all know, EVERYTHING gets worse as you get older).
And now I have to wear hearing aids.
My wife has to repeat nearly everything she says. Hearing aids are very expensive, also.
So, I blame the Fourth of July.
Stupid holiday.
— The name Gnarly Trombone was taken from an 1871 Cincinnati newspaper that misread Horace Greeley's handwritten name of the Greeley Tribune. Mike Peters is a retired Tribune staff writer. He may be emailed at mrpeters26@comcast.net.
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