Almost sixty years ago, I was a student at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, a thousand miles from my home in New Jersey. Going home for a short Thanksgiving break was not feasible, so my father’s cousin and boyhood friend Bill invited me to share the Thanksgiving holiday with his family in Kentucky. It was a great visit. Bill made sure that I would have a great time.

• Bill’s wife Leslie cooked a great meal, which did not include any possum, although Bill tried to give the impression that the “mystery meat” on the table was in fact that very thing.
• They took me ice skating at a local rink, where I found out that Bill’s daughter was an accomplished skater. An accomplished skater, I definitely was not, but at least, I was able to avoid falling down.
• Bill was an avid beekeeper. He took me to one of his hives and showed me how to harvest honey, with both of us in full beekeeper garb. He even forced one of the bees to sting him so he could show me that the bee’s barbed stinger stuck into him so tightly that when he pulled the bee off him, the barbed stinger, with its attached pouch of venom, continued to pulse as it repeatedly pushed venom into his hand. Apparently, he had been stung so often that he had built up an immunity to the venom’s effect.
• Bill was also a National Rifle Association member with a variety of firearms. He took me to an outdoor firing range, so I could get some experience firing various weapons at targets. When you are firing rifles and handguns, you need to protect your hearing from the concussion caused by the sudden extreme compression of the air that is displaced by the firing of the weapon.

This is where I had a little problem.

Bill had given me chunks of cotton to stuff into my ears to protect my hearing. Unfortunately, at some point during the session, the cotton dropped out of my left ear. By that time, my hearing was so impaired that I couldn’t tell the difference. As a result, when we got back home, I was deaf in my left ear, and couldn’t hear very well with my right.

My hearing came back to an extent over the next week or two. However, I have had a constant “ringing” in my ears, both of them, ever since. This problem, called tinnitus, is due to destruction of the “hair” cells in the ear. It would be great if there were a way to regenerate the damaged hair cells or grow new ones. There is recent research in this area, coming out of China. A recent paper appearing in frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience titled Research Progress on the Mechanism of Cochlear Hair Cell Regeneration covers the current state of the art in hair cell regeneration. It is encouraging that this is being worked on, although for many people, such as soldiers, heavy metal rock fans, and me, a solution to the problem is still quite far off.

Lesson learned: Protect your hearing! I learned this lesson too late. Hopefully you will read this in time to protect yours.

BIO:

Allen G. Taylor is a 40-year veteran of the computer industry and the author of over 40 books, including Develop Microsoft HoloLens Apps Now, Get Fit with Apple Watch, Cruise for Free, SQL For Dummies, 9th Edition, Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies, Database Development For Dummies, Access Power Programming with VBA, and SQL All-In-One For Dummies, Third Edition. He lectures internationally on astronomy, databases, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He also teaches database development and Crystal Reports through a leading online education provider. For the latest news on Allen’s activities, check out his blog at wwwallengtaylor.com or contact him at allen.taylor@ieee.org.