DATE: Thursday, July 17, 1997               TAG: 9707170001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion

SOURCE: PATRICK LACKEY

                                            LENGTH:   76 lines

FIRST, WE NEED SILENCE DUMB AND DUMBER POLISH THEIR LISTENING SKILLS

For a variety of reasons, people aren't listening to each other.

Where do you get off saying that? I'm not deaf. I heard what you just said, not that you said much. Did I ever tell you this one? A kangaroo hops into a bar, see, and orders a drink.

But the problem is that people don't truly hear each other anymore. They talk past each other.

That may be, but a cow ambles into a bar and orders a pint of milk. The bartender's jaw drops. He asks. . . .

This lack of listening is serious stuff. The July 10 Wall Street Journal said, and I quote, ``nobody's listening.''

Who cares what they said? A termite goes into a bar and asks, ``Is this bar. . . ?''

Much is at stake here. The Journal says, and I quote, ``Overwhelmed by the incessant, intrusive babble of the modern world, the skill of listening has fallen on hard times. People say they are constantly repeating orders, directions and questions. The word `What?' rings through the halls of commerce.''

So what if people say ``What?'' You know what I'm saying?

Five hundred eighty-three people died in a 1977 runway collision in the Canary Islands because of misunderstood instructions. Someone wasn't listening with both ears.

Wasn't my fault. Probably I was fishing.

I blame television. For everything. Mind loss. Hair loss. Memory loss. Most of all, listening loss.

I gotta brother fixes sets. Sound. Picture. Scratches. Anything.

TV habituates us to listening with half an ear. The same for radio.

This blind DJ is clinging to one wing of a plane 3,000 feet up. He's also a preacher, see, and his dog is. . . .

We grow accustomed to shoving sound so far into the background that it barely grazes our ears.

Mars jokes are hot now, 'cause of TV showing that wagon up there bumping into red rocks. This Martian kid asks his mom. . . .

Do you know why Americans once listened attentively to four-hour sermons and speeches?

I don't believe they ever did.

Because, before electricity, people were starved for sound. The husband toiled alone in a field. The wife swept a farmhouse floor - no phone, no neighbors, no stereo, just the whisper of a breeze and the whisk of her broom.

You probably heard about the pioneer who tried to marry his mule.

A harmonica, played halfway decently, touched a farm family more deeply than a stack of CDs touches a roomful of teen-agers today.

Is something bothering you?

If we're ever to truly hear each other again, we need two things.

Do you know what kind of economist President Truman said he wanted?

First, we need silence. Seas of silence. Oceans of silence. Galaxies of silence. I see joggers wearing earphones. I want to trip them. I will trip the first jogger I see with a cellular phone. Don't you get it? We're eating peas every waking hour. We're tired of peas. We're sick to death of peas. We need a world without peas.

Are you on some kind of medication?

Second, we need to accept, if only temporarily, that a person speaking might be right.

My cousin, Harry, thinks carp tastes good. He eats shrimp tails. Puts ketchup on his breakfast cereal. He's wrong a lot.

Let me read to you what Kathy Thompson said. She teaches listening courses in Milwaukee, and said, ``To be a good listener, you have to forgo your own ego and put the other person first. You have to shut off the talking inside your own head.''

Does she twist her nose to do that?

Clearly, good buddy, you need practice listening. I'm working at listening, even as we speak. For example, I heard you mention a kangaroo just a moment ago. Right? It hopped somewhere. Right? See how concentration works? You retain what you truly listen to.

I like peas. MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.

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