I have an ear ache. I’m told it’s because something called a eustachian tube is plugged up. One more bit of human design that would seem to be improvable.

But my ear reminds me of something. A story. So here goes.

Back in 1966-67, I was at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, working on an Electrical Engineering degree. (And avoiding going to Vietnam for as long as possible.) I was also playing in a popular band out of Cedar Rapids called The Legends. One day I saw a notice on a billboard: “Wanted, an electronic technician. Contact The Speech and Hearing Research Center.”

I at that point was 23 years old, and had a two-year electronics tech background, and some experience. I was hired. Twenty hours a week. With the Hearing research lab. 

I joined a group of PhDs and other variously trained personnel headed by Dr. Rose, a medical doc. They were trying to find out how the tiny electrical signal from the ear to the brain works. To do so, common house cats were being used. To make a long story short, a ten-micron-sized needle was inserted into nerves here and there in the cat’s hearing process, and we–the head tech and I–tried to amplify it. Finding it was hard. Amplifying it was not a simple task, but our main headache was keeping out all the stray static that exists around us. The ear’s signal was so tiny that it had to be super multiplied. Which also multiplied stuff unwanted.

I didn’t know it then, but this research led to making the University one of the leading ocular implant leaders in the world. ( I didn’t know it because I was drafted out of school and sent to Vietnam.) I can guess that, for you tech types out there, the advent of transistors, which were inside little metal houses, helped control the noise contamination, much better than tubes, which lived in glass houses.

The Legends were opening at Danceland in Cedar Rapids for Eric Burden and the Animals in a couple of weeks, so I had a bunch of our speakers in the anechoic chamber in the lab, running sound through them, trying to tune them to something better. Big speakers become bass-ey, lose treble. Varying baffles and tuning ports and other tricks can cure that.

Dr. Rose happened to stick his head in the chamber, saw the head-high stacks of large speakers,  and asked what I was doing. He had a curious nature. Which made him a great researcher. I told him what I was trying to do.

He looked at those huge speakers. Said he’d be right back. He brought with him an old-style analogue decibel (sound level) meter. (Which means it had a needle, like a clock.) He was curious about the volume levels we musicians were being subjected to, speakers that size and all.

We did the gig, during which the dB meter sat on my Hammond organ. I thought nothing about it, we packed up, I brought the meter back to the lab the following Monday, and went on with my very busy life.

I was working on a piece of amplification equipment in the lab when he brought the meter up to me, and asked me if I had looked at it? And no, I hadn’t. He seemed quite impressed as he showed it to me.

The needle was all the way to the peg, and stuck there. We were so loud we broke it.

Which put the sound level past sticking your head inside a jet engine, kind of.

He looked at me and said: “If you don’t start wearing ear plugs, you’ll be deaf by the time you’re 30.” He left.

And I’ve reached this age with hearing pretty appropriate to my age.

And yes, I wore ear plugs in all the bands I’ve played in.

I have an ear ache.