Ring, Ring

Today I was listening to Neil Diamond.  Love at the Greek.  My Neil Diamond habit is no secret — I wrote about it in Truck: A Love Story.  But today I was reminded of how I used to strap the boombox to the back of my Dad’s Massey-Ferguson 135 and listen to this album on cassette while cutting hay.  I’d plug in a pair of gigantic 1970s headphones and crank the volume so I could hear the music over the noise of the tractor.  And I wonder why I have tinnitus. UPDATE: Fifteen years later I revisited my tinnitus status in an article for Men’s Health. That essay, “That Ears Ringing Thing,” is in this book.