Invaluable Lessons

I have been deaf in my left ear for a very long time. I’m not sure how or when it happened, but it is something with which I have learned to adapt.

Once upon a time, long ago, when I was young, my friends and I would frequent the bars for a night of dancing. It was one of those nights, perhaps 1984, at a bar called The No Name Cafe in Charleston, where a friend and I were having a beer and listening to a great song by someone like The Pet Shop Boys or Robert Palmer. As I stood there sipping my beer, a man approached, whispering in my left ear. Not hearing a word he’d said, I shook my head and said, “No, thanks.” Perplexed, the man arched his brows and then said, “But I asked the time.” Mortified, I gave him the time.