Dave's Journal, Aug2019
The first phone number that my parents made me memorize was "South-8-1548", and (as I had nothing better to do on a hot day today) I wandered through the Brooklyn phone books stored on https://archive.org/about/ .
'Lo and behold, from 1954 (we lived in Grandma Leo's house on 18th street - over there on the right, the arrow pointing to 9 year old Dave in suit and tie) I found Dad's entry in the Brooklyn phone book !
Had my pre-op exam today. So many questions. So many instructions. But we're set to go with the left implant on Aug 23rd.
My neighbor is busy as a bee out there today ....
We walked one of our favorite loops in Boston. Took the Red Line in from Alewife station. Walked along the Charles River, then up through the Back Bay (I wish I had $$$$), lunch at Joe's (do you believe I ate kale and quino with salmon??) then through the park back to the train. Beautiful weather too.
Met with the auditory pathologist today (she is helping me deal with word recognitiom in bad noise situations). Deb sat in on this session. We went into a noisy cafeteria and the pathologist hid her mouth (so I couldn't read lips) and gave me set of instructions of things to fidget with on the table. The idea is to simulate a cafeteria discussion with a stranger.
I was not permitted to say "What?", to say "I'm deaf" or to point to my ears to indicate I'm deaf (she's tying to break my bad habits ). I had only a few polite options on how I could respond if I did not hear the instructions (she's trying to teach me to be politely deaf).
Overall, I did well.
Jake, Rachel, Rebekah, Christian, Mr. X
Christian & Rebekah
Rachel & Jake
We get up there once or twice each year, and yesterday was the day. Weather was great.
We ate lunch at The Wild Blueberry - a new place for us. I had California scrambled eggs - avocados, etc. - excellent. But the coffee was typically whimpy as in most places.
Crowded on the beach, along the streets and on the path along the shore. I kept my camera mostly pointed away from the people.
I knew that renewing my NY Times digital subscription would land me in trouble, and it took all of about 10 minutes to do that.
I started in the "Arts" section (seemed safe to stay out of the "politics" section), and caught a movie review (or was it a TV review? - does it matter) that highlighted a "cisgender" leading character.
"Cisgender"? God save us, there are new "____gender" prefixes I have to deal with. (I miss the simpler times of "normal" and "queer".)
Well, studying up on the vernacular, I found that I am actually a "____gender" type, and that type is, specifically, I am cisgender.
What can I say .... that's how God made me.
And let me add "_____genderites of the world, stand proud about who you are".
Had lunch with Ferruccio & Joanne at a brewery bar & grill place. Food was very good, noise was horrible. I gave F&J an excellent speech on being deaf and how your brain works (or doesn't). Then F and I had a tussle about whether or not the Mona Lisa (painting) deserves it's reputation. (I say it doesn't, but it goes on and on.)
Had to hack 2 bad pictures together to get this one ....
Deb is off with her Southbridge HS girls. I am breaking in a new cheapo tablet PC for the porch.
I finally braved the event and went to an afternoon with Deb's high school friends, one of whom has a house on a lake in Connecticut. One drove up from R.I., and one drove down from York Beach. It was a good time, and we all "bonded" well. Nice people.
Full story at the bottom of BeingDeaf.html
Well, when you're stuck on the porch and can't do much .... you fish the internet for data.
The National Poverty Rate across the United States is somewhere between 13.9% and 14.6%., depending on how you adjust the calculation for local "cost of living".
In the United States, 1.7% of households received food stamps in the past year.
Weird (not pickng on these states, but quickly trying to understand these pictures):
# Florida has a poverty rate of like 25% and a food stamp rate of 9%.
# Arizona and New Mexico have poverty rates like 40% average and a food stamp rate of 3.5% average.
I guess each state decides differently who gets food stamps and who does not. Which makes you wonder - if the federal gov't issues block grants to the states for food stamps based on their poverty rates, some states could just skimp on the food stamps and bank the cash. ???
Hey, I said that I am stuck on the porch with nothing to do, right?
I get to laze around this week, so am reading a lot. This fascinating book on the history of the Scots-Irish people who migrated to America in the 1600's. Opens a whole new perspective on the development of our Southern & Frontier culture and it's rebellious, anti-government, gun-loving ideals.
Extremely informative. Basically how the English kings drove them out of Scotland & Ireland, and that they came here with a burning hatred of the English. So ..... when it came to fight in the Revolutionary war to free America, the Scots-Irish were crucial to that success. (I'd actually say we would have lost the Revolution had the Scots-Irish settlers not crushed the Brits in the South.) Then they went back to the woodlands of West Virginia, Tennessee, etc to establish our Southern sub-culture of living independently, fighting when you need to, staying ready to go to war, as needed.
That if course is a gross over-simplification, but it tells the tale of what I am up to - learning new things.
Also watched two documentaries, "Born Fighting" on the topic. Not as informative as the book, but good backup.
I am healing up very well. Can't wait to turn this implant on. However, living on only one (implanted) ear is not so very bad as you may think. The brain is amazing.
My newly ordered medical bracelet.
The one thing we reliably produce as a country - and produce more of than any other nation in the world per capita - is garbage. Americans make up just 4 percent of the world's population, but we account for 12 percent of the planet's yearly waste. Annually, according to the E.P.A., we landfill 840,000 tons of plastic plates and cups, 3.4 million tons of diapers, 8.2 million tons of clothing and footwear and 910,000 tons of towels, sheets and pillowcases. Or think about it another way: If you took all the garbage that we produce in a year and put it on a gigantic scale, it would weigh over 700 times more than the Empire State Building.
All this junk has spawned opportunity for recyclers, which range from mom-and-pops to multinational corporations. According to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), the world's premier recyclers-trade association, the scrap industry as a whole -which includes processors of plastics, paper, glass, rubber and textiles - employs 531,500 people. That exceeds the number of Americans who work as computer programmers, web developers, chemical engineers and biomedical engineers combined.
Recently, at some global environmental summit, the US rep bashed China and India because they in fact produce the most tonnage of garbage on the planet. The guy from India blew a head gasket and noted that the populations of China and India add up to 8.5 times the population of the US, and that the US produces much much more garbage / person than any other country.
To defend our position, I'd note that China and India dump their garbage in the ocean. We, at least, bury our garbage on our own property. So .... get all the facts on the table before forming an opinion.
The molasses tank stood 50 ft tall and 90 ft in diameter and contained as much as 2,300,000 US gal.
..... the tank burst open and collapsed at approximately 12:30 pm. Witnesses reported that they felt the ground shake and heard a roar as it collapsed, a long rumble similar to the passing of an elevated train; others reported a tremendous crashing, a deep growling, "a thunderclap-like bang!", and a machine gun-like sound as the rivets shot out of the tank.
The collapse translated this energy into a wave of molasses 25 ft high at its peak, moving at 35 mph The wave was of sufficient force to drive steel panels of the burst tank against the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and tip a streetcar momentarily off the El's tracks. Stephen Puleo describes how nearby buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 ft.
After the initial wave, the molasses became viscous, exacerbated by the cold temperatures, trapping those caught in the wave and making it even more difficult to rescue them. About 150 people were injured, and 21 people and several horses were killed. Some were crushed and drowned by the molasses or by the debris that it carried within.
