That comment prompted me to rummage around for one of my favorite photos: a much younger version of my Shop Assistant helping us shred leaves in the front yard.
She thinks it’s entirely right & proper to:
- don safety goggles while doing anything even remotely eye-unsafe
- wear a dust mask to mow the lawn
- jam 30 dB foam plugs into her ears during thrash metal concerts
A parent can’t ask for more, methinks…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
I’m with her. I bought an industrial package of earplugs, qty 100 each color (safety orange, garish purple) that lives in the back of my car for surprise concerts. We went to an accordion jam last Friday that somehow turned out to be one of the loudest concerts I’ve ever been to: thank goodness for earplugs.
I’ll admit to some pushback until she “forgot” the plugs at one concert; probably cut 1 kHz right off her high end.
Now they’re part of her regular attire…
I don’t understand why they have to be so loud anyway.
My 7th Grade science teacher instilled the importance of PPE on me… I’ll always be thankful for that. When my daughter was about 5, she discovered that her Ginnie Pig “Sir Poops-a-lot” passed away. Later that day she told a friend “And I was the first to know. Well, he was the first, but he couldn’t tell anyone after that…” Anyway, she wanted to make a grave stone for him (still in our back yard). Of course we cadded it up and CNC’d it on my home made gantry router. As the 30,000 rpm router hit a knot in the wood, sure enough pieces of wood flew in all directions, and one hit her directly in the eye. Good thing she was wearing safety goggles!!! She realized if it were not for the goggles she would have really been hurt. After 10 years of Marching Band and Drum Corps my ears ring at about 18 kHz. I have about 35 dB of hearing loss, mostly due to the decrease in signal to noise ratio. Makes it really hard to understand people talking when there is background noise… funny thing is they started ringing years after I quit playing the trumpet. Moral of the story is, by the time you notice, the damage is LONG done….
– Steven Ciciora
As the Pennsylvania Dutch put it: “We grow too soon old and too late smart.”