MY ETD IS MADE BY SIEMENS:THANKS TO RON

[DIANE HOFSTETTER]

List friends,

I have a lot of early Journals from the days when piano technicians called 
each other "Brother Smith" , "Brother Farrell", "Brother McCloud", etc.  
(Today we would have to add "Sister Hofstetter")

I believe that "Brother Ron May, RPT" did a very brave and helpful thing in 
posting about his hearing aids and the need to get our hearing checked. (I 
would add, annually and at higher frequencies than the audiologists usually 
check.)

You have no idea of the number of piano techs I have met at conventions who 
have problems with their hearing and feel that they have nowhere to turn.  
How do they admit to their customers, their competitors, their families and 
themselves, that they are having trouble hearing?  One man arrived to take 
his hearing test with his hearing aid firmly implanted in his pocket.

My father was terrified when he was trying to decide to buy his.  He asked 
"What will people think, if I arrive at their homes to tune their pianos 
wearing hearing aids?"  I asked him what they would think if he couldn't 
hear to tune their pianos?

He eventually did buy them, and told his customers he had "bionic hearing", 
from the TV show, the Bionic Man.  He passed both "the old" and "the new" 
tuning tests aurally, but used an Accutuner in his daily rounds.

When he started teaching me to tune, he could hear the beats far better than 
I could. (because of his hearing aids and because he knew what to listen 
for--trained hearing will always outperform untrained).

After he died, I used a goodly portion of my inheritance from him, going to 
PTG conventions to get the word out that it is necessary to protect our 
hearing.  I had seen first hand how cruelly people can treat those who are 
hard of hearing.

And we all are at some degree of risk.

We owe Brother May a debt of gratitude for being brave enough to bring the 
topic up in such personal terms.

Diane