I Had To Keep On Acting Deaf

To Be Just Without Being Mad (and The Madder You Get The Madder You Get), To Be Peaceful Without Being Stupid, To Be Interested Without Being Compulsive, To Be Happy Without Being Hysterical... Smoke Grass.

If This Glorious Birth To Death Hassle Is The Only Hassle We Are Ever To Have ..if Our Grand Exhilarating Fight Of Life Is Such A Tragically Short Little Scrap Anyway,compared To The Eons Of Rounds Before And After-then Why Should One Want To Relinquish Even A Few Precious Seconds Of It?

I Lay In Bed The Night Before The Fishing Trip And Thought It Over, About My Being Deaf, About The Years Of Not Letting On I Heard What Was Said, And I Wonder If I Can Ever Act Any Other Way Again. But I Remembered One Thing: It Wasn't Me That Started Acting Deaf; It Was People That First Started Acting Like I Was Too Dumb To Hear Or See Or Say Anything At All.

Alongside The Statement About One Man's Poison Being Another Man's High, One Might As Well Add That One Man's Saint Can Be Another Man's Sore And One Man's Hero Can Turn Out To Be That Man's Biggest Hangup.

He Knows That You Have To Laugh At The Things That Hurt You Just To Keep Yourself In Balance, Just To Keep The World From Running You Plumb Crazy.