It’s amazing what you can hear when you really stop and listen.
Often we are so consumed with what’s in front of our face — literally — that we miss so many sounds just a few feet (or inches away for that matter.)
Here at my work desk it’s common to hear any or all of these during any given day:
•A vehicle with a hole in its muffler (or a vehicle with no muffler at all) still being driven.
•The sound of brakes locking as traffic gridlock in downtown Winder begins for another day.
•The sound of music echoing from a vehicle, often turned several notches too high.
•The sounds of car and truck horns being sounded at the urging of a person holding a sign advertising a business (do they have to be right outside my window?)
There are sounds which easily tops all of these and they involve a human conversation. During any trip to the big box store, where one can buy a box of cereal along with a quart of motor oil, conversations are often amusing if not depressing, pathetic and scary.
While standing in the checkout line recently, a young boy was doing his best to irritate his mother. The mother, who would have been a perfect fit for some type of reality television show, kept giving her son some stern warnings. “I’ll snatch you bald-headed!” and “I’m going to tear you a new one!” were just a couple of the printable ones. Yet, none matched the child’s response when he said, “Yeah, but you can’t bite me because you don’t have any teeth!”
Some things you overhear, you really wish you didn’t have to. A recent stop to fill the car with gas allowed me insight into a “love gone bad” scenario. The couple, who had one time thought the world of one another, were arguing during a child custody exchange. The mother was demanding more money, the father said he had no more money to give to support his ex and her “new live-in boyfriend.” And all the while the young girl brought into the world by these two was taking it all in, word for word.
A few choice expletives later and the couple had gone their separate ways leaving this witness to shake his head in disbelief at how something that one time had been so special had gone so sour. To top that incident off, the mother’s car backfired with a large cloud of black smoke pouring out the muffler, which was half an inch off the ground.
Often it’s easy to overhear people on their cell phones. It’s easy because many don’t try to keep their voice at a lower level, allowing anyone within ear range to hear half the conversation whether they want to or not.
Technology makes it easy these days with high-definition televisions and surround sound to hear plenty of extra during live sporting events. Football games have a tendency to air numerous choice words during broadcasts as the coaches and players are so caught up in the moment they often aren’t able to control what words emerge from their mouths.
A high school mentor told me many moons ago that if you “stop, listen and take in the sounds around you,” then you will be surprised at what you hear. It’s funny what stays with us all these years. The conversations I’ve overheard would probably make for an interesting book.
Listening can be an amusing tool, if only more people would slow down long enough to do it then the things we’d learn could very well be an eye-opener.
Chris Bridges is editor of the Barrow Journal. You can reach him at cbridges@barrowjournal.com.
