In My Day We Didn't Use Those Sissy Hearing Protection Things
 

what did you say ????? win I was young we did not use ear plugs at all but I do today. what did you say ?????

I don't need ear plugs now. My ears are ringing so loud I can't hear anything.

My ears were blown apart by a failure to wear hearing protection shile shooting and my long career blowing up explosive ordnance.

Young people are especially vulnerable to hearing damage. The 15 year old grandson of a friend will probably never hunt again because of hearing and nerve damage. He bought a new .243 Winchester rifle with a 20" barrel, took it to the range and fired 20 rounds without hearing protection.

The young man has been to several ENT doctors who can do nothing for him. He can't even shower because of the noise.

In my early days I used those ear plugs with the valves that are suppose to shut when you shoot. Maybe the technology is better now, and those work. They destroyed my hearing, and it's only gotten worse over the years.

Did you say something?

Whut?? Did someone say sumpin??

When I was a kid we had a BIG bonfire in the middle of the road in front of my house every 4th of July and New Years Eve.

Kids from the entire neighborhood would show up with their meger collection of fireworks. But I had a "well off" uncle who would show up in his big Pontiac sedan with its humongous trunk filled to the top with fireworks. Not the wimpy stuff available today - real fireworks like cherry bombs, M-80s, strings of 1,000 Black Cats, and Roman Candles that shot 300 feet up. He never lit one off himself, but passed them out freely to every kid around. I remember going to bed those nights smelling like smoke with my lungs burning and ears ringing louder than a school bell. Good times - but my hearing was shot by the time I was 16.

It stopped sometime around 1960 when the street was blacktopped and the whole neighborhood grieved for those bonfires. There were always a few burned fingers. But somehow never any serious injuries. I wonder how many personal injury lawsuits there would be if someone did that today.

I have lost 65% of my hearing in my left ear. I blame a lot of that for failure to use hearing protection, not only when shooting but when operating power equipment. Now I walk around with ear plugs in my pocket. If I climb on a lawn mower rider, ear plugs.. start the push mower.. plugs, chainsaw.. Absolutely plugs!! etc. Its a pain when I have to constantly turn my head to understand what someone is saying to me.

I visited my father a few weeks ago. I'm old and he's older then dirt. And he's deaf as a post. He has these $4000.00 hearing aids that he is suppose to wear. But he seldom does. You know he's home because when you pull in the driveway, you can hear the TV, while still out in the car. But the most frustrating is when you try and talk to him and he will answer with the most off the wall answers to questions. Then we laugh at him and he gets mad.

If you have good hearing, protect it. That ringing in the ears is annoying later in life.

wow I am in the same boat
What you Say?

Everytime I shoot black powder I think of the great fireworks we had when I was a kid. Same old burned sulfur.