The above photo was taken at the 2019 Mississinewa Battle Reenactment. When I took the picture my heart sunk just a little and sadness overcame me. This is not the first time that has happened. In fact, I have felt the same thing hundreds of times in the past 20 years or so.

In my youth I very much enjoyed music. It was not until my college years that I could afford my own record player, so I had no records until then. I was a folk song guy so most of my records were of that genre. But, I also enjoyed orchestras and a few soloists outside of folk. Johnnie Mathis, Pat Boone, Montivonti Orchestra, Henry Mancini, and probably a dozen others that I can no longer remember. No, I didn’t much care for Elvis, he was too flashy and noisy for my tastes. 🤪

I loved to turn on my music in my college dorm room, it helped to study.

I guess maybe it is time to tell you about my sudden sadness on taking the picture above. I went deaf in 1988 and of course that abruptly ended my music appreciation time. But until a decade or so after I went deaf my mind could still conjure up the sounds of the music that I loved. After that, the sounds of musical instruments started to fade, and today I just can’t remember what sound any musical instruments make. I played the guitar in my youth, being a folk song guy, of course I did 😋 but what came off those strings is just not imaginable now. I can still feel myself plunking the strings but that is it. Pianos, horns, drums make no sound for me. I have no sound of music in me anymore and when I am reminded of that fact, such as taking this picture, my heart slows down a few beats.

I still remember the words of many of my favorite songs. Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, even Peter, Paul and Mary’s words still ring in my ears. I can remember the cadence and the words but what accompanied them is gone. But that doesn’t keep me from blurting out my own transition of them when I am alone. I mean completely alone. In fact, I have small tattered copies of a couple of dozen songs that I still cherish. Of course The Sounds Of Silence is one of them. Little did I think that that song would someday mean so much to me.