Summertime

It’s Summertime

Rollout those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer,

Those days of soda and pretzels and beer.

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer,

Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer.

That first verse of that golden oldie from 1963 says it all. The season for being a little bit lazy and maybe just a tiny bit crazy is here. The song was made famous by a beloved American singer, Nat “King” Cole, who could croon with the best of them. If you don’t remember him or the song, it doesn’t matter. You get the idea.

Everyone has something they love most about summer. For me, it’s swimming. My town had a public pool and there was a free bus to get there. If you were a resident, it was only $1.00 to get in. On hot, sunny days, my mother would give my sister and me each a dollar, but anything else we wanted, like ice cream, with bought with our allowance. (I usually got an ice cream sandwich, but my sister was big on chocolate fudge pops.) We’d see our friends and gossip a little, but the best part for me was actually being in the water. I couldn’t get enough. I loved the feeling of near weightlessness and the freedom to bend and fold in ways I never could on land. And of course there was always a rousing game or two of Marco Polo. As far as I was concerned, it was the ideal way to spend a summer day. There was nothing better.

I still love to swim. I’m lucky enough to have my own inground pool, so I’m in the water whenever it’s warm and sunny. Sometimes I’ll swim in the evening too. You can’t beat a moonlight swim. Watching the fireflies go about their business on a moonlit night, while floating on your back is nothing short of amazing.

Things have changed since I was kid, though. Back then I didn’t wear hearing aids, so I could jump in without a second thought. For the past few years I’ve had to remember to take them out before making my big splash. There have been times when I was inches away from diving in when I remembered. OMG! Getting my hearing instruments wet would’ve resulted in them being 100 percent gone. Dead. Never to be revived.

Thank heavens that’s no longer the case. There is a new system that brings hearing instruments back to life after they get wet. Known as Redux, the process was first used on cell phones and other electronics. The hearing aids are put in a special box, where a vacuum lowers the evaporation point of water and removes 98 percent of all liquid in battery-powered and rechargeable hearing aids. Dead instruments improve up to 50 percent after a Redux treatment, and weak instruments up to 83 percent. That’s great news for swimmers like me, who might have occasional memory lapses before taking the plunge.

Redux helps non-swimmers too, whose hearing aids might not function as well in summer because of perspiration and humidity. So if you’re instruments don’t seem to be doing the job, it might be time to get them checked. A Redux treatment could do the trick.  

Nothing will ever bring back the lazy, hazy summer days of my youth. But at least if I get a little crazy and go headfirst into the pool, my hearing aids will survive.  

 

Claudia Hensen's Blog Series