June 10, 2025 • 38 mins
Today, Doug Pike interviews Dr. Vivian Kaul about age related hearing loss.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this? Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today? Cool?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
This show is all about you. This is fifty plus
with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances, good health,
and what to do for fun. Fifty plus brought to
you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging, Informed
Decisions for a healthier, happier life, and now fifty plus
(00:43):
with Doug Pike.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
All right, here we go, first edition of this week's
episodes of fifty plus start now. Welcome to Tuesday. Huh,
pretty good one actually, so far as if you don't
mind a little heat. Did I miss anything over the
tail end of the week? Will?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Weather wise?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I don't know, not weather wise, just news wise. Is
there anything occur here that I need to know about
at the office? Uh? Well, I do about the internal stuff. No,
just in Houston, in the Greater Houston Metropolitan area, I
don't think.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
So do you do.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Anything over the weekend? I mean, I've been packing. Why
are you packing? Vacation? I got moving. I have to
move on out. Huh yeah, what happened? To that deal.
It never mind, it doesn't matter. I don't want to you,
you don't need to. I don't mean to pry into
your own personal business. So anyway, for you newcomers to Houston.
(01:44):
By the way, uh, this isn't summer, not quite yet.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
True.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Summer is going to start, uh when I get closer
to the fourth of July than Memorial Day. And once
it does start, you'll know it, and it'll seem like
it's never going to stop until sometime, I don't know,
maybe around Halloween. I've lived here for more than half
a century, gumany cricket, and nothing's really changed, except now
(02:09):
people think we can influence the entire planet's temperatures by
driving electric cars and reverting to paper bags over plastic bags.
I talked. I talked about that last week as a
matter of fact, about how it wasn't that many years
ago when we were told that paper using paper was
(02:32):
going to destroy the planet because it was killing all
the trees which supply this world of ours with oxygen,
and so we needed to move to something far more,
far more better for the planet, and that thing was plastic.
We were told that plastic was the answer, and now
(02:54):
we find out that plastic is not the answer. But
we're still killing trees and we're still using plastic, and
it's just gonna the world's gonna keep turning, the world's
gonna keep turning, honest to goodness. Ah, it's very frustrating
for me to watch the hot spells and cold spells,
and and some are more some are longer than others.
(03:17):
Some heat waves, heat heat periods are a little bit longer.
Might be two years, five years, six years, maybe one year,
and then we'll get a cold streak for a little while.
But most people, logical people, I feel like, uh, notice
it from history that these things have been happening since
(03:39):
the planet formed, and they're just gonna keep on changing
and back and forth hot spells and cold spells and
start all over. By the way, I was in Dallas
all weekend at a baseball tournament. It was almost hot
up there, highs in the mid to high nineties, and
but for a couple of places where there was actual breeze.
(04:01):
It was pretty brutal, it really was. I haven't been
in that much heat for that much of a day,
over three days straight. I can't remember, well it would
have been the last time would have been a baseball
tournament as well, somewhere anywhere in anywhere pretty much from
Dallas south, and we have never played north of Dallas.
(04:24):
I don't think my son actually went to a tournament
in Missouri once. I believe that was this past summer,
kind of as a pickup guy for a team, and
that he said was pretty pleasant. Actually, the weather wasn't
too bad. It's not bad when you're watching kids play baseball.
There was one stadium we went to by the way
that it was actually nice. It had a press box,
(04:46):
and because it was just a bunch of sixteen and
seventeen year old and eighteen year old kids playing baseball,
there was nobody up there to announce the game. This
was at a college field actually, but the field itself
wasn't nearly so good as about ninety five percent of
the high school stadiums and in baseball fields in this
state of ours. That university, that particular university didn't really
(05:11):
place much emphasis on sports. It was more academically oriented.
It's Dallas University. You never heard of that will Dallas
University private school. Not much in the way of athletic
fields or facilities. I have not heard of yeah, they're
not d one. They're defunct as far as sports go,
(05:35):
I guess. And conversely, UT Dallas had an amazing facility
for athletics, both school sponsored athletics and then all the
intramural sports. There must have been a dozen soccer fields,
four or five softball fields, just fields and fields and
(05:58):
fields with lights without life. They have pickleball courts, they
have I don't know, fifteen or twenty tennis courts, maybe more.
I didn't stop to count, but that was that was
a school, a bigger school for starters, and one that
make sure that its students have all kinds of distractions
and athletic opportunities to keep themselves fitting in shape and whatnot.
(06:24):
The weather, I can't believe people really think we can
influence the entire planet. The left racks reacts to all
the minor changes, every one of them too. A little
bit cold, oh, we got to do something about that.
A little bit hot, We got to do something. Remember
when it was it was global warming for a while,
and I've talked about this before too, global warming that
was the catchphrase fifteen twenty years ago. And then when
(06:45):
we started getting these really cold spells, nobody believed in
global warming anymore. So they had to change the name,
and they changed it to climate change. It's climate change now.
Climate changes every year, the climate changes every week, every day,
every second, and we just just lap it up.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Some of us do.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I don't, I honestly don't. The ones who do push
something new every time that's gonna save the planet, and
they make fortunes off of it, they being the people
who have connections to get government contracts for millions and
billions of dollars in windmill blades and solar panels and
(07:26):
you name it, you name it. It's out there and
it's not gonna make any difference. I just don't see
how it possibly can. So anyway, that's let's go go
ahead and get to this first break, will and I'm
gonna try and stay on time for you. I really am.
I promise. It's not like I had any revelation or anything,
but you know, I do have good intentions. At least
(07:47):
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(09:13):
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Speaker 1 (09:24):
Aged to perfection. This is fifty plus with Dougpike. All right,
welcome back to fifty plus. Thanks for listening. I certainly
do appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
And during your lunch hour, your breakfast hour, maybe or
I don't know, maybe the show helps you get started
on a midday nap. Kind of hope not. But anyway,
in this segment, we're going to talk about age related
hearing loss, which is something I'm certain a lot of
you slash us up in my hands in the air,
a lot of us have, but not so many of
(09:54):
us address before it really gets bad. And to help,
I'm going to bring back to fifty plus doctor Vivian Call,
Associate or Assistant Professor of Otology, Neurotology and lateral skull
based Surgery. That's a pretty fancy thing. Holy cal at
McGovern Medical School at UTA Health and an expert in
hearing loss. That's why she's here. Welcome back, doctor Call.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Hi, how are you?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
You know? I'm doing pretty well. Thanks for giving us
a little bit more of your time. My hearing loss
was caused by years of shooting sports back a little
before hearing protection was anything near what it is today.
If you throw out that sort of self inflicted stupidity
and injuries, what percentage of seniors would you say experience
hearing loss just with advancing age.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
So population studies estimate from about sixty to eighty year
old population based patients, it's about twenty to twenty seven percent.
In seventy years and older, the prevalence can be about
sixty three percent. So it's definitely a lot and the
majority are afflicted, whether or not they are willing to
(11:05):
admit it.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, but yeah, there's that too. You know, somebody just
keeps their hand down when the questions asked because they
don't want to talk about There is a little bit
of stigma attached to that, isn't there.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, I think the old antiquated hearing aid kind of
you know, they're not sexy, they're not slim profile, so
patients are turned off by it, and there aren't a
lot of accessories the way glasses are. But you know
what's also not sexy? Asking what all the time, So
that is its own way of showcasing that you do
(11:41):
have an issue. So the hearing aids nowadays are very
low profile slim and even me, I am constantly seeing
age related hearing loss in my clinic and I don't
even I don't even notice that the patients have them
until I'm physically about to look in their ear. So
that's how low pro while they can be. And the
(12:02):
stigma really should not should not be as pervasive anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yeah, And we don't get a month for loss of
hearing like mental health does, and other issues that are
really have suffered the same stigma over the years. So
it's it's kind of hard, I think, and in my
hands in the air a little bit too. I don't
want to I don't want to do that. I just don't.
So what changes in a healthy body, It's not me
and my shooting sports, but what changes in a healthy
(12:28):
hearing system so that it becomes not so healthy or
efficient at picking up sound.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
It is really just the wear and tear on the
nerves itself. So it's not really a big, you know,
slip of a switch. But the same way your hairs
grow gray as you age, the nerves and the hair
cells within the cochlea basically in their own way grow gray,
(12:55):
and so you just move that ability to hear those
high frequent sounds. So the age related hearing loss means
that the high frequency aka children or your consonants like
f's and s's, those will be missed, and so that's
why the brain actually tries to fill in that gap
(13:18):
for you. So if you're out at a restaurant and
a bunch of your friends are talking and you can't
really hear, your brain's working twice as hard as your peers.
So that's actually why you see patients have dementia accelerated
when you also have hearing loss is untreated. So if
you have any way to mitigate that dementia risk, it's
(13:40):
actually with hearing loss and treating it with hearing aids
is not invasive, relatively low costs, with a lot of benefits.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Let's talk about the cost of that actually, because that
was on my list. Down a little tighter or a
little farther down. Some of these hearing aids that if
you go to the doctor's office are going to cost
you thousands of dollars, And then on television you see
some that are you know, don't worry about those. You
can get these for one hundred dollars apiece. Where's the
line of yeah, these will work for you without spending
(14:13):
all that money.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
So on average, if you have no nothing peculiar about
your hearing loss, because there are other variations, but if
you're running the mill age related hearing loss and your
physician and audiologists agree, then those over the counterhearing aids
that are a few hundred dollars are worth a shot. However,
(14:36):
it is what you pay for. So the ones that
are at discount prices that means you get a discount product,
and the ones that are higher ends, including AI, those
are going to be thousands of dollars. And it is
a little bit of like a Ford Focus versus the Cadillac,
and so you know that you're buying a top quality
(14:57):
product that will last longer versus something over the counter
that might just get by but not really amplify you
to the degree that you have the capacity for.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Is that where the difference between an audio amplifier and
a true hearing aid. That's kind of those two or
different things.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
Right in some aspects, yes, there is a little bit
more complex than that, but in general, yeah, you can
think of it like a volume adjuster for those audio amplifiers,
and then the hearing aid is actually technology that.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Can certain frequencies dial up and down as well as
the AI features that are available.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Yeah, that's what I was thinking was with the higher
end devices, they're going to allow you to hear that
conversation better, whereas the other the lower end is just
going to make everything louder.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Does that make sense correct?
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Yes? And so if you also have ringing, which is
usually what goes hand into again, I know, the ringing
is actually usually what brings patients in, not the hearing loss.
The patients are bothered by the ringings. They want that
to go away. And so if you actually get a
hearing aide that is medical you know, medical grade, then
(16:15):
that can also provide you some noise cancelation ability for
that ringing. So for a lot of patients, that's the
more attractive feature for the hearing aids as well.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
One of the reasons for hearing aids I read in
the material I got from Jose was that it can
also lead to other problems like depression and isolation. Talk
about that for a minute.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
If you are not physically able to hear and understand
the people around you, everyone's annoyed, everyone's experienced that. And
so at a certain point a lot of patients just say,
you know what, it's not worth the trouble. I'll I'll
just stay at home. And that pattern, especially in the elderly,
(17:04):
can really accelerate depression. If you're already limited by let's
say mobility, then the conversations are critical, even if it's
television that you're watching. So if you're not able to
hear that, then you're really isolated completely, not really even
(17:25):
capable of communicating with the important people that you need to.
So it's just a very quick easy fix for you
to get back into your community.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Is there anything we can do to slow or stop
progression of hearing loss at advanced age?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Unfortunately not really. What you're born with, what God gave
you is the best that you have. That's the max
that you have, the same way that women are born
with a certain number of ovaries. That's the same kind
of concept. So the key is preservation. If you are
going to a concert, put in those ear plugs. If
(18:04):
you're going shooting, put in those ear plugs. That might
mean doubling up.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Belts and suspenders go in the ear as well as
outer ear, and so that also includes being at your job,
avoiding long prolonged ware of air pods at high volumes.
If your children, you know, are not having that level
of sound being capped at a certain amount, they can
(18:30):
also get noise induced hearing loss. So unfortunately it's about
preservation and not so much about amplifying what you can provide.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, so wherever anyone in this audience is now, that's
the best they're going to be able to do without
hearing aids. And if you're comfortable where you are now, fine,
good for you. If you're not, it's going to be
hearing AIGs. There's not some usually it's diet and exercise,
but that's not going to help with hearing, is it.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Of course, if you have diabetes, if you have high
blood pressure and stroke risk, that actually increases your risk
of hearing loss significantly. So overall health does portend of
better hearing health. I should mention one other thing. Hearing
aids are really not the ceiling. There is one other
step up that can provide you back your hearing, and
(19:23):
that's called a cochlear implant. Right, you should definitely seek
out an E and T if you're in that category
where hearing aids just aren't quite cutting it. That might
mean that you qualify for a cochlear implant, and don't
be afraid if you're wondering about the cost. That actually
is something that we push for the insurance companies to
pay for. So that is a big difference between a
(19:44):
hearing aid and a cochlear implant, and a lot of
patients don't know that and they never seek out that
care because they assume the cost will go to them.
But that's not true.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
All right, Well, that's good news to leave on doctor
Vivian call. Thank you so very much for your time.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
She's great, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
All right. I hope everybody in this audience heard her
very loudly and very clearly, and we'll take advantage of
the information you got there. Let me tell you about
Berry Hill Baja Grill, and I hope you hear all
of this too, because this is a family run restaurant
on fifty nine down there in sugar Land at Sugar
Creek Boulevard, been around for many, many years. Best fish
(20:24):
tacos I've ever eaten, and I've eaten my share, certainly.
My wife and I found Berry Hill more than twenty
years ago, it may have been twenty five. Even we've
been in sugar Land for more than thirty and from
that day forward we made it one of our regular
stops when we eat out. We don't eat out of
Ton anymore, but when we do, that's very high on list.
(20:45):
On the list, Berry Hill is it's family friendly. You
go in there, you sit down on the left hand
side at tables and booths, and it's kind of a
normal restaurant, and then on the other side, on the
right hand side is kind of more of a sports
bar area, and then outside you've got in the evening,
it's comfortable still to dine outside. And anything you order
(21:08):
off that menu is it's traditional tex Mex food, and
pretty much anything you order is gonna be delicious and
it's gonna taste the same every time you go. Because
the people in the kitchen, the two primary people in
that kitchen anytime they're open, are there for they've been
there ten, twelve, fifteen years. I don't remember exactly how
long that Wendy told me these two folks have been
(21:31):
back there, but they churn out absolutely delicious, absolutely consistent product.
And at the top of my list, maybe even better
than the fish tacos, would be the trace letches, which
they order, by the way, in a vanilla version and
a chocolate version, and when you're asked which you would prefer,
just say yes and maybe get one of each for
(21:53):
the table to enjoy, and everybody get a fork full
or two and you're gonna love it. You really are
very friendly people in there. If you're new to sugar
Land and you want to stop in there, chances are
very good that if you let them know you're you're new,
somebody's gonna bring you into their group and get to
know you, and you'll get to know them, and next
(22:13):
time you go into berry Hill you'll be able to
see some friends. Berryhill Sugarland dot com is website family
owned and operated for many many years. Berryhillsugarland dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, they sure don't make them like they used to.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That's why every few months we wash them, check us
forwards and spring on a fresh coat o wax. This
is fifty plus with Doug Pike. Welcome back to fifty plus.
Thanks for listening. Certainly do appreciate it. I got to that.
I got to that.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Back back to the baseball tournament for just a bit.
This is so I was in Dallas over the weekend.
I mentioned that beginning of the show, and my son's
at an age now where where these teams are playing
real baseball, and it's a lot more fun to watch
little league baseball, pee wee baseball, t ball. All of
that is fun if your kids are playing, but it's not.
(23:09):
It's all developmental. It should be. And if coaches are
more interested in winning at little league than they are
in developing their players and making them all better baseball
players before the end, you're probably on the wrong team.
You're probably on the wrong team. If you want your
son or daughter, whoever's playing softball, baseball, whichever sport they're in,
(23:31):
if you want them to keep enjoying the sport, they
need to get better. And that doesn't mean putting the
best nine players on the field all the time. It
doesn't mean teaching your nine year old to throw a curveball.
It means developing them with age appropriate skills that they
(23:52):
can use to become better baseball players. And as they
become better players, they will win more games. You can't
just you need all of your probably twelve players. Usually
in little league teams, you got your starting nine and
three options, and a lot of times they come to you.
I had one kid come to me years ago with
(24:14):
zero experience and never had played baseball in his life.
And when I asked that question and he raised his hand,
I just looked at him and said, okay, you and me,
we're going to become best friends. We're going to become
joined at the hip as I teach you how to
play right now. And this was at eleven twelve years old.
There are a lot of kids on All Stars by then.
(24:36):
There's a lot going on in the baseball world. And
I feel very proud to report that I only had
him for one season, but after that he was so
much better, and he loved the game so much. He
continued to play. And he came up to me at
a tournament once as a sixteen year old, and I
didn't even recognize the kid. He just said, hey, Coach
(24:57):
Doug or Coach Pike. And I looked and I said, okay,
which one are you and he told me who it was.
I was stunned, I really was. I was so glad
to see him still loving baseball. Let him have fun,
Let him make a few errors, it's okay, and don't
get on them at all. Don't ever on the way home,
especially don't ever talk about anything bad they did, said, man,
(25:18):
it just sure is fun to watch you play baseball.
And then if you want to talk to him a
little bit later, maybe the day after they lose a
bad a tough game, or your your son makes a
bad mistake, then go at it. But not until then.
These kids, though, are very good. And now, for example,
when there's a pop fly hit, nobody thinks that the
(25:41):
kid's gonna drop the ball. Everybody thinks they're gonna catch it.
And when they do drop it, it's just it jaw dropping,
like that couldn't have possibly happened. I watched it happen
once on our team exactly actually this weekend, and it's like, hey,
you got to do better than that. And rather than
get upset and yeller screen though, the coach just says, hey, man,
(26:02):
I got to count on you. I got to count
on you to catch that ball. And then they go
back to playing baseball. You can't punish him for mistakes
because they're at the age when they're going to make them.
Even at sixteen seventeen, still that's not professional baseball. It's
a long ways from that. Sixteen seventeen is a long
way from college baseball, and most of the kids who
(26:24):
are playing at even sixteen and seventeen aren't going to
be playing much longer after that. That high school's going
to end it for them. It's fun to watch, so anyway,
I also pay attention to their attitudes on the field,
and so do college coaches. By the way, if you've
got a son who's looking like he might want to
go to college, the coaches are going to look at
(26:45):
their attitude and their grades. This bunch has got some
real big egos in it, and you can see them
coming from a mile away. A few of them. They've
got all the swagger of a big MLB superstar, but
they can't back it up. And when they make an error,
they draw attention to themselves by pouting or stomping off
or blaming the umpire or anything they can, rather than
(27:09):
just accept what happened and go back to the dugout
or go back to play in their position. The good
ones they just go about their business and they take
care of business. If they fumble a ground ball or
strike out, they just file it away and get back
to what they're supposed to be doing, which is helping
their teammates, helping the other eight guys out there win
(27:30):
the game because it takes all nine of them. It
always does. Ah, sort of like the PGA Tour when
they hit a horrible shot. Those guys, the best ones
can control their emotions and realize they're gonna make bad shots.
That's part of the game. Not everybody, not every professional
golfer hits it purely every time, or sinks every putt.
(27:51):
They're gonna miss short ones, even they're gonna miss two
footers at some point in their careers, and they just
they just hope it doesn't happen when it really matters.
Speaking of golf, us opens up underway up well, it
starts this week up in Oakmont in Pennsylvania where the rough.
The rough is as high I've seen several videos of
it now it's as high as an elephant's eye. Who
(28:12):
borrow that old tired phrase. USGA pretty much outdone itself
this time and let that turf grow closer to the
sun than ever. I'm not gonna be surprised, even with
as many spoders as they're going to have to have
along that golf course, I won't be shocked at their
ball's lost this week. Just in the rough somewhere. Something
(28:33):
else about this one too, with a full field going
off on one and ten Thursday and Fridays, at the
first tea time is at six forty five. It's usually
seven to ten. I think in most tournaments. Six forty
five is really early in the morning to start playing golf.
Got two good groups to watch that I noticed when
I took a brief look at tea times. Speith rom
(28:55):
and Dustin Johnson go off at one fourteen on ten
on Thursday day and at one twenty five off the
first tea that same day. It's hobbling, more cow and shuffler.
So anyway, four great days of golf coming up, and
it's it's gonna take somebody really strong, I think, to
muscle through that roof. They're all gonna be in it,
(29:15):
and we're gonna see some frustration come out when these
guys can't chop through that salad and even advance the
full swing ten feet or less. This will be interesting.
Moving to the uh, Moving to the take a break desk,
I guess will huh? I spent a lot of time
talking about baseball. I hope they'll forgive me. Will you
got to get out of here. Ah, yes, I know
(29:36):
all right. On the way out, I'll tell you about
UT Health Institute on Aging once more. And I'm so
glad to announce that we had a great meeting they
and I about a week ago now and really made
some advances in what we're gonna do with the show
moving forward to how we're gonna change a few things
and add a few things that are all gonna make
(29:57):
it more informative, more inchestering, a little more of appointment listening,
if you will, to where you'll kind of know what's coming.
I'm gonna I'm gonna get my guest information earlier so
that I can plant that on social media and time
for everybody to get it where they can. If it's
relevant to them, they'll be certain to tune in. And
(30:19):
I think that's just going to really work well for
all of us. The UT Health Institute on Aging is
a collaborative of more than a thousand providers around here
who have taken it upon themselves to get additional training
to whatever it is they took in medical medical school
so that they can apply all their knowledge specifically to
seniors when that's necessary. When one of us walks into
(30:39):
the office, walks into the exam room. They'll know, Okay,
well this is a senior. I know how to help
that person specifically with whatever's bothering them. In my field,
that's a tremendous advantage and it's available right here in Houston.
And most of those providers in the medical center, as
you might imagine, any of them also work outside and
(31:01):
all that, all the outlying communities around here, all of them,
some of those providers are going to be there at
least some part of the week where if you don't
want to go to the med center, you don't have
to uth dot edu, slash aging. Go there, look at
all the resources, get yourself familiar with exactly what they
can do for you. And none of that, none of
that stuff there costs anything. It just gives you access
(31:24):
to so much more than you'll find at most of
our other places ut h dot edu, slash aging.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
What's life without a nap? If I suggest to go
to bed, leave it off, just wait until the show's over.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Sleepy Back to Doug Pike as fifty plus continues, moving
to the violent.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Protest desk out in Los Angeles. I can't I can't
ignore that. Via MSN News by the way, the Department
of Home Land Securities yank government funding to the Coalition
for Humane Immigrant Rights after determining that it was involved
in this past weekend's disturbing protests out in Los Angeles.
The group got about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars
(32:04):
from a subagency of DHS over the past two years.
Those dollars were earmarked for citizenship instruction and naturalization services.
So yeah, that's probably not where a lot of that
money went, seems like to me. While Los Angeles burns
at the hand of writers to California has actually sued
(32:25):
the federal government for sending National Guard troops and marine
theres to restore or why would you only if you
wanted the city to burn, would you not welcome help
in keeping it from burning? That's the disturbing part for me.
By the way, We're supposed to have a protest here
over the coming weekend, and I'm confident, i am that
(32:48):
whoever gathers here in our city is going to do
so peacefully and not resort to setting fires and destroying property.
We've had some pretty big protests in Houston before, and
they've remained pretty calm overall. A lot of bullhorns and
flag waving and marching through the streets, and there's nothing
wrong with that at all. Issues at these events typically
(33:10):
re sparked by paid activists and agitators who get flown
in or bust in or whatever just for that purpose,
just to elevate and make it worse than it needs
to be. They are paid to turn peaceful demonstrations into
potentially dangerous chaos. I hope Houston stay's peaceful. I really do.
(33:33):
I hope law enforcement's ready to respond if it doesn't.
From the Loose Lips Desk. This also came by a
MSN comes word that a Minnesota state lawmaker, a woman
named Kyla Lee vang Her, is in our country unlawfully
by her own words, and she has been for decades.
(33:54):
After she said a family member falsified the documents that
gained them entry to the United States, came right out
and said it, so now what now what? From the
Never a Doubt Desk comes confirmation that the left has
just held bent on destroying our country from within. After
more than half of the House Democrats voted against a
(34:16):
resolution that condemned the recent terror attack in Boulder and
expressed support for federal authorities who are dealing with the
detention of criminal illegal immigrants. And one hundred and something
Democrats voted against that. They voted against that. Why I'll
(34:37):
never know. Not my business to know, but I'll never know.
Let's go to the easy, relaxing stuff, will and kind
of get out of that mess. Oh, by the way,
just very quickly, to start with some good news from
a couple of years back, but with an updated twist,
comes the story of a crane operator in Great Britain
who used his skills actually to maneuver a basket intended
(35:00):
to take workers up and let them work on the
side of a new building that was going up. Well,
when this building that was going up burst into flames,
there was a worker trapped amidst heavy smoke and toxic
fumes and fire creeping up on him many floors off
the ground, and that train operator managed to get that
(35:21):
basket up in there close enough where the guy could
step out of the building and into the basket and
saved the guy's life. Clearly, that crane operator, who has
cancer now, by the way, was granted the wish, a
humble wish really, when asked if there was anything that
could be done for him. He asked for a backyard shed.
That'd be something I would ask for, someplace to put
(35:43):
my someplace to put my fishing tackle. Nice guy, great guy,
and didn't ask for much. He could ask for a house,
he could ask for a car. He just wanted his
shed to put his stuff in. I thought that was cool.
By the way, Ali Jarrett is at the helm of
the Texas Golf Hall of Fame, and I've been in
contact with her and a couple of other people by
way of email and phone calls and whatnot. The Hall
(36:05):
of Fame is over in San Antonio on at Brackenridge
Park golf Course, and it's launched a big awareness campaign
and I'm gonna make you guys aware of it and
do my humble little part here. And I'm really actually
thankful to our regional president here, Eddie Martine, for running
their public service announcements. I got those launched to start
(36:28):
this week. I'm hoping to get a Hall of Fame
member or two on the air with me this week
and over the weekend too during the US Open, So
I'll be working on that behind the scenes. I'm gonna
call Billy ray Brown myself and I'm not gonna wait
on them to see if we can get I'm just
gonna go directly to him. Nobody's gonna know his schedule
better than he is, and I'll try and sneak five
or six minutes out of him, and then maybe maybe
(36:49):
in a couple out of alley. She runs the Hall
of Fame, for Heaven's sake, she'd know more about it
than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Do I have one minute?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Will? Is that all we've got? You have a minute? Twenty? Okay?
Well up here, I'll give you busy tooth fairy leave
me alone, or pasta La vista baby, leave me alone.
I knew it. According to a new report, the average
American only gets nine and a half hours to themselves
every month. That's twenty minutes a day. Also, the average
(37:19):
person would pay two thousand and five hundred dollars in
change for a totally free day. You know what my
question is, Will? How much for a week? How much
for a week? Let's see if I can afford it.
That would be kind of nice if you have a
whole week where I could just do what I wanted,
go where I wanted, and just I think they call
(37:40):
it vacation. I think they call that abandoning society wishful thinking. Yeah,
I think that's probably what it's gonna be. I've got
another long weekend. I'm gonna have to take off here,
coming up to I'll let you know more about that.
Uh pasta la vista, baby, I'll give you that one
while we're here. Will you ever wonder what the number
one pasta shape is in your date? In my stay?
(38:02):
I know I haven't wonders, and that's all I'm not even.
I'm not gonna say anymore. I just I saw that
and I thought, you know, I'll bring it up, but
I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna do it the justice
of actually reading any of them. The favorite is whatever
you want to see on your plate. We will be
back tomorrow with more on our place for you. Thank
you all for listening and see it then
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this? Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today? Cool?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
This show is all about you. This is fifty plus
with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances, good health,
and what to do for fun. Fifty plus brought to
you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging, Informed
Decisions for a healthier, happier life, and now fifty plus
(00:43):
with Doug Pike.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
All right, here we go, first edition of this week's
episodes of fifty plus start now. Welcome to Tuesday. Huh,
pretty good one actually, so far as if you don't
mind a little heat. Did I miss anything over the
tail end of the week? Will?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Weather wise?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
I don't know, not weather wise, just news wise. Is
there anything occur here that I need to know about
at the office? Uh? Well, I do about the internal stuff. No,
just in Houston, in the Greater Houston Metropolitan area, I
don't think.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
So do you do.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Anything over the weekend? I mean, I've been packing. Why
are you packing? Vacation? I got moving. I have to
move on out. Huh yeah, what happened? To that deal.
It never mind, it doesn't matter. I don't want to you,
you don't need to. I don't mean to pry into
your own personal business. So anyway, for you newcomers to Houston.
(01:44):
By the way, uh, this isn't summer, not quite yet.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
True.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Summer is going to start, uh when I get closer
to the fourth of July than Memorial Day. And once
it does start, you'll know it, and it'll seem like
it's never going to stop until sometime, I don't know,
maybe around Halloween. I've lived here for more than half
a century, gumany cricket, and nothing's really changed, except now
(02:09):
people think we can influence the entire planet's temperatures by
driving electric cars and reverting to paper bags over plastic bags.
I talked. I talked about that last week as a
matter of fact, about how it wasn't that many years
ago when we were told that paper using paper was
(02:32):
going to destroy the planet because it was killing all
the trees which supply this world of ours with oxygen,
and so we needed to move to something far more,
far more better for the planet, and that thing was plastic.
We were told that plastic was the answer, and now
(02:54):
we find out that plastic is not the answer. But
we're still killing trees and we're still using plastic, and
it's just gonna the world's gonna keep turning, the world's
gonna keep turning, honest to goodness. Ah, it's very frustrating
for me to watch the hot spells and cold spells,
and and some are more some are longer than others.
(03:17):
Some heat waves, heat heat periods are a little bit longer.
Might be two years, five years, six years, maybe one year,
and then we'll get a cold streak for a little while.
But most people, logical people, I feel like, uh, notice
it from history that these things have been happening since
(03:39):
the planet formed, and they're just gonna keep on changing
and back and forth hot spells and cold spells and
start all over. By the way, I was in Dallas
all weekend at a baseball tournament. It was almost hot
up there, highs in the mid to high nineties, and
but for a couple of places where there was actual breeze.
(04:01):
It was pretty brutal, it really was. I haven't been
in that much heat for that much of a day,
over three days straight. I can't remember, well it would
have been the last time would have been a baseball
tournament as well, somewhere anywhere in anywhere pretty much from
Dallas south, and we have never played north of Dallas.
(04:24):
I don't think my son actually went to a tournament
in Missouri once. I believe that was this past summer,
kind of as a pickup guy for a team, and
that he said was pretty pleasant. Actually, the weather wasn't
too bad. It's not bad when you're watching kids play baseball.
There was one stadium we went to by the way
that it was actually nice. It had a press box,
(04:46):
and because it was just a bunch of sixteen and
seventeen year old and eighteen year old kids playing baseball,
there was nobody up there to announce the game. This
was at a college field actually, but the field itself
wasn't nearly so good as about ninety five percent of
the high school stadiums and in baseball fields in this
state of ours. That university, that particular university didn't really
(05:11):
place much emphasis on sports. It was more academically oriented.
It's Dallas University. You never heard of that will Dallas
University private school. Not much in the way of athletic
fields or facilities. I have not heard of yeah, they're
not d one. They're defunct as far as sports go,
(05:35):
I guess. And conversely, UT Dallas had an amazing facility
for athletics, both school sponsored athletics and then all the
intramural sports. There must have been a dozen soccer fields,
four or five softball fields, just fields and fields and
(05:58):
fields with lights without life. They have pickleball courts, they
have I don't know, fifteen or twenty tennis courts, maybe more.
I didn't stop to count, but that was that was
a school, a bigger school for starters, and one that
make sure that its students have all kinds of distractions
and athletic opportunities to keep themselves fitting in shape and whatnot.
(06:24):
The weather, I can't believe people really think we can
influence the entire planet. The left racks reacts to all
the minor changes, every one of them too. A little
bit cold, oh, we got to do something about that.
A little bit hot, We got to do something. Remember
when it was it was global warming for a while,
and I've talked about this before too, global warming that
was the catchphrase fifteen twenty years ago. And then when
(06:45):
we started getting these really cold spells, nobody believed in
global warming anymore. So they had to change the name,
and they changed it to climate change. It's climate change now.
Climate changes every year, the climate changes every week, every day,
every second, and we just just lap it up.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Some of us do.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I don't, I honestly don't. The ones who do push
something new every time that's gonna save the planet, and
they make fortunes off of it, they being the people
who have connections to get government contracts for millions and
billions of dollars in windmill blades and solar panels and
(07:26):
you name it, you name it. It's out there and
it's not gonna make any difference. I just don't see
how it possibly can. So anyway, that's let's go go
ahead and get to this first break, will and I'm
gonna try and stay on time for you. I really am.
I promise. It's not like I had any revelation or anything,
but you know, I do have good intentions. At least
(07:47):
Optima Doors. If you are looking to update your home's
appearance with a stunning and secure front door, optimis steal
or iron doors. Optimum iron Doors is where you need go.
There's a big showroom over on North Post Oak Optima Doors,
by the way, exclusively sold through Primo Doors, which is
(08:08):
over there on North Post Oak. You can see them
all for yourself. Here's the deal with this tariff stuff
going on maybe on steel and iron and aluminum and
all of that. Now is the time to buy that
new beautiful steel door, that new beautiful iron door that
you're looking for. And the place to do it, of
course is Optima because not only are they not raising
(08:30):
prices right now, they are running their big summer sale
right now through which you can get a better deal
than you're probably ever gonna get again, really competitively priced,
and they are discounting from their regular They haven't jacked
the price up and then offered a little bit something
off of that. They stuck to their guns. They're normal
(08:51):
pricing less a nice chunk for the summer sale. You
can get online and see what they do at Optima
Door's Optimum iron Doors dot com. Excuse me, Optima iron
Doors dot com, or just go by that showroom. Really
it's not far. It's just a little ways north of here,
much closer to I ten than to fifty nine off
(09:13):
the loop on North Post Oak. Optima iron Doors dot Com.
They're made right here in North America Optimum Optima, iron
Doors dot Com.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Aged to perfection. This is fifty plus with Dougpike. All right,
welcome back to fifty plus. Thanks for listening. I certainly
do appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
And during your lunch hour, your breakfast hour, maybe or
I don't know, maybe the show helps you get started
on a midday nap. Kind of hope not. But anyway,
in this segment, we're going to talk about age related
hearing loss, which is something I'm certain a lot of
you slash us up in my hands in the air,
a lot of us have, but not so many of
(09:54):
us address before it really gets bad. And to help,
I'm going to bring back to fifty plus doctor Vivian Call,
Associate or Assistant Professor of Otology, Neurotology and lateral skull
based Surgery. That's a pretty fancy thing. Holy cal at
McGovern Medical School at UTA Health and an expert in
hearing loss. That's why she's here. Welcome back, doctor Call.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Hi, how are you?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
You know? I'm doing pretty well. Thanks for giving us
a little bit more of your time. My hearing loss
was caused by years of shooting sports back a little
before hearing protection was anything near what it is today.
If you throw out that sort of self inflicted stupidity
and injuries, what percentage of seniors would you say experience
hearing loss just with advancing age.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
So population studies estimate from about sixty to eighty year
old population based patients, it's about twenty to twenty seven percent.
In seventy years and older, the prevalence can be about
sixty three percent. So it's definitely a lot and the
majority are afflicted, whether or not they are willing to
(11:05):
admit it.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, but yeah, there's that too. You know, somebody just
keeps their hand down when the questions asked because they
don't want to talk about There is a little bit
of stigma attached to that, isn't there.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, I think the old antiquated hearing aid kind of
you know, they're not sexy, they're not slim profile, so
patients are turned off by it, and there aren't a
lot of accessories the way glasses are. But you know
what's also not sexy? Asking what all the time, So
that is its own way of showcasing that you do
(11:41):
have an issue. So the hearing aids nowadays are very
low profile slim and even me, I am constantly seeing
age related hearing loss in my clinic and I don't
even I don't even notice that the patients have them
until I'm physically about to look in their ear. So
that's how low pro while they can be. And the
(12:02):
stigma really should not should not be as pervasive anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Yeah, And we don't get a month for loss of
hearing like mental health does, and other issues that are
really have suffered the same stigma over the years. So
it's it's kind of hard, I think, and in my
hands in the air a little bit too. I don't
want to I don't want to do that. I just don't.
So what changes in a healthy body, It's not me
and my shooting sports, but what changes in a healthy
(12:28):
hearing system so that it becomes not so healthy or
efficient at picking up sound.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
It is really just the wear and tear on the
nerves itself. So it's not really a big, you know,
slip of a switch. But the same way your hairs
grow gray as you age, the nerves and the hair
cells within the cochlea basically in their own way grow gray,
(12:55):
and so you just move that ability to hear those
high frequent sounds. So the age related hearing loss means
that the high frequency aka children or your consonants like
f's and s's, those will be missed, and so that's
why the brain actually tries to fill in that gap
(13:18):
for you. So if you're out at a restaurant and
a bunch of your friends are talking and you can't
really hear, your brain's working twice as hard as your peers.
So that's actually why you see patients have dementia accelerated
when you also have hearing loss is untreated. So if
you have any way to mitigate that dementia risk, it's
(13:40):
actually with hearing loss and treating it with hearing aids
is not invasive, relatively low costs, with a lot of benefits.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Let's talk about the cost of that actually, because that
was on my list. Down a little tighter or a
little farther down. Some of these hearing aids that if
you go to the doctor's office are going to cost
you thousands of dollars, And then on television you see
some that are you know, don't worry about those. You
can get these for one hundred dollars apiece. Where's the
line of yeah, these will work for you without spending
(14:13):
all that money.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
So on average, if you have no nothing peculiar about
your hearing loss, because there are other variations, but if
you're running the mill age related hearing loss and your
physician and audiologists agree, then those over the counterhearing aids
that are a few hundred dollars are worth a shot. However,
(14:36):
it is what you pay for. So the ones that
are at discount prices that means you get a discount product,
and the ones that are higher ends, including AI, those
are going to be thousands of dollars. And it is
a little bit of like a Ford Focus versus the Cadillac,
and so you know that you're buying a top quality
(14:57):
product that will last longer versus something over the counter
that might just get by but not really amplify you
to the degree that you have the capacity for.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Is that where the difference between an audio amplifier and
a true hearing aid. That's kind of those two or
different things.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
Right in some aspects, yes, there is a little bit
more complex than that, but in general, yeah, you can
think of it like a volume adjuster for those audio amplifiers,
and then the hearing aid is actually technology that.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Can certain frequencies dial up and down as well as
the AI features that are available.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Yeah, that's what I was thinking was with the higher
end devices, they're going to allow you to hear that
conversation better, whereas the other the lower end is just
going to make everything louder.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Does that make sense correct?
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Yes? And so if you also have ringing, which is
usually what goes hand into again, I know, the ringing
is actually usually what brings patients in, not the hearing loss.
The patients are bothered by the ringings. They want that
to go away. And so if you actually get a
hearing aide that is medical you know, medical grade, then
(16:15):
that can also provide you some noise cancelation ability for
that ringing. So for a lot of patients, that's the
more attractive feature for the hearing aids as well.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
One of the reasons for hearing aids I read in
the material I got from Jose was that it can
also lead to other problems like depression and isolation. Talk
about that for a minute.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
If you are not physically able to hear and understand
the people around you, everyone's annoyed, everyone's experienced that. And
so at a certain point a lot of patients just say,
you know what, it's not worth the trouble. I'll I'll
just stay at home. And that pattern, especially in the elderly,
(17:04):
can really accelerate depression. If you're already limited by let's
say mobility, then the conversations are critical, even if it's
television that you're watching. So if you're not able to
hear that, then you're really isolated completely, not really even
(17:25):
capable of communicating with the important people that you need to.
So it's just a very quick easy fix for you
to get back into your community.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Is there anything we can do to slow or stop
progression of hearing loss at advanced age?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Unfortunately not really. What you're born with, what God gave
you is the best that you have. That's the max
that you have, the same way that women are born
with a certain number of ovaries. That's the same kind
of concept. So the key is preservation. If you are
going to a concert, put in those ear plugs. If
(18:04):
you're going shooting, put in those ear plugs. That might
mean doubling up.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Belts and suspenders go in the ear as well as
outer ear, and so that also includes being at your job,
avoiding long prolonged ware of air pods at high volumes.
If your children, you know, are not having that level
of sound being capped at a certain amount, they can
(18:30):
also get noise induced hearing loss. So unfortunately it's about
preservation and not so much about amplifying what you can provide.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, so wherever anyone in this audience is now, that's
the best they're going to be able to do without
hearing aids. And if you're comfortable where you are now, fine,
good for you. If you're not, it's going to be
hearing AIGs. There's not some usually it's diet and exercise,
but that's not going to help with hearing, is it.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Of course, if you have diabetes, if you have high
blood pressure and stroke risk, that actually increases your risk
of hearing loss significantly. So overall health does portend of
better hearing health. I should mention one other thing. Hearing
aids are really not the ceiling. There is one other
step up that can provide you back your hearing, and
(19:23):
that's called a cochlear implant. Right, you should definitely seek
out an E and T if you're in that category
where hearing aids just aren't quite cutting it. That might
mean that you qualify for a cochlear implant, and don't
be afraid if you're wondering about the cost. That actually
is something that we push for the insurance companies to
pay for. So that is a big difference between a
(19:44):
hearing aid and a cochlear implant, and a lot of
patients don't know that and they never seek out that
care because they assume the cost will go to them.
But that's not true.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
All right, Well, that's good news to leave on doctor
Vivian call. Thank you so very much for your time.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
She's great, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
All right. I hope everybody in this audience heard her
very loudly and very clearly, and we'll take advantage of
the information you got there. Let me tell you about
Berry Hill Baja Grill, and I hope you hear all
of this too, because this is a family run restaurant
on fifty nine down there in sugar Land at Sugar
Creek Boulevard, been around for many, many years. Best fish
(20:24):
tacos I've ever eaten, and I've eaten my share, certainly.
My wife and I found Berry Hill more than twenty
years ago, it may have been twenty five. Even we've
been in sugar Land for more than thirty and from
that day forward we made it one of our regular
stops when we eat out. We don't eat out of
Ton anymore, but when we do, that's very high on list.
(20:45):
On the list, Berry Hill is it's family friendly. You
go in there, you sit down on the left hand
side at tables and booths, and it's kind of a
normal restaurant, and then on the other side, on the
right hand side is kind of more of a sports
bar area, and then outside you've got in the evening,
it's comfortable still to dine outside. And anything you order
(21:08):
off that menu is it's traditional tex Mex food, and
pretty much anything you order is gonna be delicious and
it's gonna taste the same every time you go. Because
the people in the kitchen, the two primary people in
that kitchen anytime they're open, are there for they've been
there ten, twelve, fifteen years. I don't remember exactly how
long that Wendy told me these two folks have been
(21:31):
back there, but they churn out absolutely delicious, absolutely consistent product.
And at the top of my list, maybe even better
than the fish tacos, would be the trace letches, which
they order, by the way, in a vanilla version and
a chocolate version, and when you're asked which you would prefer,
just say yes and maybe get one of each for
(21:53):
the table to enjoy, and everybody get a fork full
or two and you're gonna love it. You really are
very friendly people in there. If you're new to sugar
Land and you want to stop in there, chances are
very good that if you let them know you're you're new,
somebody's gonna bring you into their group and get to
know you, and you'll get to know them, and next
(22:13):
time you go into berry Hill you'll be able to
see some friends. Berryhill Sugarland dot com is website family
owned and operated for many many years. Berryhillsugarland dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, they sure don't make them like they used to.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That's why every few months we wash them, check us
forwards and spring on a fresh coat o wax. This
is fifty plus with Doug Pike. Welcome back to fifty plus.
Thanks for listening. Certainly do appreciate it. I got to that.
I got to that.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Back back to the baseball tournament for just a bit.
This is so I was in Dallas over the weekend.
I mentioned that beginning of the show, and my son's
at an age now where where these teams are playing
real baseball, and it's a lot more fun to watch
little league baseball, pee wee baseball, t ball. All of
that is fun if your kids are playing, but it's not.
(23:09):
It's all developmental. It should be. And if coaches are
more interested in winning at little league than they are
in developing their players and making them all better baseball
players before the end, you're probably on the wrong team.
You're probably on the wrong team. If you want your
son or daughter, whoever's playing softball, baseball, whichever sport they're in,
(23:31):
if you want them to keep enjoying the sport, they
need to get better. And that doesn't mean putting the
best nine players on the field all the time. It
doesn't mean teaching your nine year old to throw a curveball.
It means developing them with age appropriate skills that they
(23:52):
can use to become better baseball players. And as they
become better players, they will win more games. You can't
just you need all of your probably twelve players. Usually
in little league teams, you got your starting nine and
three options, and a lot of times they come to you.
I had one kid come to me years ago with
(24:14):
zero experience and never had played baseball in his life.
And when I asked that question and he raised his hand,
I just looked at him and said, okay, you and me,
we're going to become best friends. We're going to become
joined at the hip as I teach you how to
play right now. And this was at eleven twelve years old.
There are a lot of kids on All Stars by then.
(24:36):
There's a lot going on in the baseball world. And
I feel very proud to report that I only had
him for one season, but after that he was so
much better, and he loved the game so much. He
continued to play. And he came up to me at
a tournament once as a sixteen year old, and I
didn't even recognize the kid. He just said, hey, Coach
(24:57):
Doug or Coach Pike. And I looked and I said, okay,
which one are you and he told me who it was.
I was stunned, I really was. I was so glad
to see him still loving baseball. Let him have fun,
Let him make a few errors, it's okay, and don't
get on them at all. Don't ever on the way home,
especially don't ever talk about anything bad they did, said, man,
(25:18):
it just sure is fun to watch you play baseball.
And then if you want to talk to him a
little bit later, maybe the day after they lose a
bad a tough game, or your your son makes a
bad mistake, then go at it. But not until then.
These kids, though, are very good. And now, for example,
when there's a pop fly hit, nobody thinks that the
(25:41):
kid's gonna drop the ball. Everybody thinks they're gonna catch it.
And when they do drop it, it's just it jaw dropping,
like that couldn't have possibly happened. I watched it happen
once on our team exactly actually this weekend, and it's like, hey,
you got to do better than that. And rather than
get upset and yeller screen though, the coach just says, hey, man,
(26:02):
I got to count on you. I got to count
on you to catch that ball. And then they go
back to playing baseball. You can't punish him for mistakes
because they're at the age when they're going to make them.
Even at sixteen seventeen, still that's not professional baseball. It's
a long ways from that. Sixteen seventeen is a long
way from college baseball, and most of the kids who
(26:24):
are playing at even sixteen and seventeen aren't going to
be playing much longer after that. That high school's going
to end it for them. It's fun to watch, so anyway,
I also pay attention to their attitudes on the field,
and so do college coaches. By the way, if you've
got a son who's looking like he might want to
go to college, the coaches are going to look at
(26:45):
their attitude and their grades. This bunch has got some
real big egos in it, and you can see them
coming from a mile away. A few of them. They've
got all the swagger of a big MLB superstar, but
they can't back it up. And when they make an error,
they draw attention to themselves by pouting or stomping off
or blaming the umpire or anything they can, rather than
(27:09):
just accept what happened and go back to the dugout
or go back to play in their position. The good
ones they just go about their business and they take
care of business. If they fumble a ground ball or
strike out, they just file it away and get back
to what they're supposed to be doing, which is helping
their teammates, helping the other eight guys out there win
(27:30):
the game because it takes all nine of them. It
always does. Ah, sort of like the PGA Tour when
they hit a horrible shot. Those guys, the best ones
can control their emotions and realize they're gonna make bad shots.
That's part of the game. Not everybody, not every professional
golfer hits it purely every time, or sinks every putt.
(27:51):
They're gonna miss short ones, even they're gonna miss two
footers at some point in their careers, and they just
they just hope it doesn't happen when it really matters.
Speaking of golf, us opens up underway up well, it
starts this week up in Oakmont in Pennsylvania where the rough.
The rough is as high I've seen several videos of
it now it's as high as an elephant's eye. Who
(28:12):
borrow that old tired phrase. USGA pretty much outdone itself
this time and let that turf grow closer to the
sun than ever. I'm not gonna be surprised, even with
as many spoders as they're going to have to have
along that golf course, I won't be shocked at their
ball's lost this week. Just in the rough somewhere. Something
(28:33):
else about this one too, with a full field going
off on one and ten Thursday and Fridays, at the
first tea time is at six forty five. It's usually
seven to ten. I think in most tournaments. Six forty
five is really early in the morning to start playing golf.
Got two good groups to watch that I noticed when
I took a brief look at tea times. Speith rom
(28:55):
and Dustin Johnson go off at one fourteen on ten
on Thursday day and at one twenty five off the
first tea that same day. It's hobbling, more cow and shuffler.
So anyway, four great days of golf coming up, and
it's it's gonna take somebody really strong, I think, to
muscle through that roof. They're all gonna be in it,
(29:15):
and we're gonna see some frustration come out when these
guys can't chop through that salad and even advance the
full swing ten feet or less. This will be interesting.
Moving to the uh, Moving to the take a break desk,
I guess will huh? I spent a lot of time
talking about baseball. I hope they'll forgive me. Will you
got to get out of here. Ah, yes, I know
(29:36):
all right. On the way out, I'll tell you about
UT Health Institute on Aging once more. And I'm so
glad to announce that we had a great meeting they
and I about a week ago now and really made
some advances in what we're gonna do with the show
moving forward to how we're gonna change a few things
and add a few things that are all gonna make
(29:57):
it more informative, more inchestering, a little more of appointment listening,
if you will, to where you'll kind of know what's coming.
I'm gonna I'm gonna get my guest information earlier so
that I can plant that on social media and time
for everybody to get it where they can. If it's
relevant to them, they'll be certain to tune in. And
(30:19):
I think that's just going to really work well for
all of us. The UT Health Institute on Aging is
a collaborative of more than a thousand providers around here
who have taken it upon themselves to get additional training
to whatever it is they took in medical medical school
so that they can apply all their knowledge specifically to
seniors when that's necessary. When one of us walks into
(30:39):
the office, walks into the exam room. They'll know, Okay,
well this is a senior. I know how to help
that person specifically with whatever's bothering them. In my field,
that's a tremendous advantage and it's available right here in Houston.
And most of those providers in the medical center, as
you might imagine, any of them also work outside and
(31:01):
all that, all the outlying communities around here, all of them,
some of those providers are going to be there at
least some part of the week where if you don't
want to go to the med center, you don't have
to uth dot edu, slash aging. Go there, look at
all the resources, get yourself familiar with exactly what they
can do for you. And none of that, none of
that stuff there costs anything. It just gives you access
(31:24):
to so much more than you'll find at most of
our other places ut h dot edu, slash aging.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
What's life without a nap? If I suggest to go
to bed, leave it off, just wait until the show's over.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Sleepy Back to Doug Pike as fifty plus continues, moving
to the violent.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Protest desk out in Los Angeles. I can't I can't
ignore that. Via MSN News by the way, the Department
of Home Land Securities yank government funding to the Coalition
for Humane Immigrant Rights after determining that it was involved
in this past weekend's disturbing protests out in Los Angeles.
The group got about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars
(32:04):
from a subagency of DHS over the past two years.
Those dollars were earmarked for citizenship instruction and naturalization services.
So yeah, that's probably not where a lot of that
money went, seems like to me. While Los Angeles burns
at the hand of writers to California has actually sued
(32:25):
the federal government for sending National Guard troops and marine
theres to restore or why would you only if you
wanted the city to burn, would you not welcome help
in keeping it from burning? That's the disturbing part for me.
By the way, We're supposed to have a protest here
over the coming weekend, and I'm confident, i am that
(32:48):
whoever gathers here in our city is going to do
so peacefully and not resort to setting fires and destroying property.
We've had some pretty big protests in Houston before, and
they've remained pretty calm overall. A lot of bullhorns and
flag waving and marching through the streets, and there's nothing
wrong with that at all. Issues at these events typically
(33:10):
re sparked by paid activists and agitators who get flown
in or bust in or whatever just for that purpose,
just to elevate and make it worse than it needs
to be. They are paid to turn peaceful demonstrations into
potentially dangerous chaos. I hope Houston stay's peaceful. I really do.
(33:33):
I hope law enforcement's ready to respond if it doesn't.
From the Loose Lips Desk. This also came by a
MSN comes word that a Minnesota state lawmaker, a woman
named Kyla Lee vang Her, is in our country unlawfully
by her own words, and she has been for decades.
(33:54):
After she said a family member falsified the documents that
gained them entry to the United States, came right out
and said it, so now what now what? From the
Never a Doubt Desk comes confirmation that the left has
just held bent on destroying our country from within. After
more than half of the House Democrats voted against a
(34:16):
resolution that condemned the recent terror attack in Boulder and
expressed support for federal authorities who are dealing with the
detention of criminal illegal immigrants. And one hundred and something
Democrats voted against that. They voted against that. Why I'll
(34:37):
never know. Not my business to know, but I'll never know.
Let's go to the easy, relaxing stuff, will and kind
of get out of that mess. Oh, by the way,
just very quickly, to start with some good news from
a couple of years back, but with an updated twist,
comes the story of a crane operator in Great Britain
who used his skills actually to maneuver a basket intended
(35:00):
to take workers up and let them work on the
side of a new building that was going up. Well,
when this building that was going up burst into flames,
there was a worker trapped amidst heavy smoke and toxic
fumes and fire creeping up on him many floors off
the ground, and that train operator managed to get that
(35:21):
basket up in there close enough where the guy could
step out of the building and into the basket and
saved the guy's life. Clearly, that crane operator, who has
cancer now, by the way, was granted the wish, a
humble wish really, when asked if there was anything that
could be done for him. He asked for a backyard shed.
That'd be something I would ask for, someplace to put
(35:43):
my someplace to put my fishing tackle. Nice guy, great guy,
and didn't ask for much. He could ask for a house,
he could ask for a car. He just wanted his
shed to put his stuff in. I thought that was cool.
By the way, Ali Jarrett is at the helm of
the Texas Golf Hall of Fame, and I've been in
contact with her and a couple of other people by
way of email and phone calls and whatnot. The Hall
(36:05):
of Fame is over in San Antonio on at Brackenridge
Park golf Course, and it's launched a big awareness campaign
and I'm gonna make you guys aware of it and
do my humble little part here. And I'm really actually
thankful to our regional president here, Eddie Martine, for running
their public service announcements. I got those launched to start
(36:28):
this week. I'm hoping to get a Hall of Fame
member or two on the air with me this week
and over the weekend too during the US Open, So
I'll be working on that behind the scenes. I'm gonna
call Billy ray Brown myself and I'm not gonna wait
on them to see if we can get I'm just
gonna go directly to him. Nobody's gonna know his schedule
better than he is, and I'll try and sneak five
or six minutes out of him, and then maybe maybe
(36:49):
in a couple out of alley. She runs the Hall
of Fame, for Heaven's sake, she'd know more about it
than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Do I have one minute?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Will? Is that all we've got? You have a minute? Twenty? Okay?
Well up here, I'll give you busy tooth fairy leave
me alone, or pasta La vista baby, leave me alone.
I knew it. According to a new report, the average
American only gets nine and a half hours to themselves
every month. That's twenty minutes a day. Also, the average
(37:19):
person would pay two thousand and five hundred dollars in
change for a totally free day. You know what my
question is, Will? How much for a week? How much
for a week? Let's see if I can afford it.
That would be kind of nice if you have a
whole week where I could just do what I wanted,
go where I wanted, and just I think they call
(37:40):
it vacation. I think they call that abandoning society wishful thinking. Yeah,
I think that's probably what it's gonna be. I've got
another long weekend. I'm gonna have to take off here,
coming up to I'll let you know more about that.
Uh pasta la vista, baby, I'll give you that one
while we're here. Will you ever wonder what the number
one pasta shape is in your date? In my stay?
(38:02):
I know I haven't wonders, and that's all I'm not even.
I'm not gonna say anymore. I just I saw that
and I thought, you know, I'll bring it up, but
I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna do it the justice
of actually reading any of them. The favorite is whatever
you want to see on your plate. We will be
back tomorrow with more on our place for you. Thank
you all for listening and see it then
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