Can you hear me NOW?

I had a busy day today, broken up by a nice lunch with a pal at the Hungry Traveller in Salisbury.

I think we were the only people in there under the age of 70. I do not believe there is a place in Newburyport where you would go in at 1 p.m. and there were only senior citizens in there (although they did have a "senior special" menu).

The food was good, though. Real fried chicken where the meat was still as moist as a dewdrop on a petal.

One thing I have to say, though - it was very quiet. I mean, the silence was like the oral void in a library right before closing time.

I hadn't quite realized how noisy restaurants are until today.

As I grow older, I get more and more sensitive to loud noises (one reason I think senior citizens might not go to a "community center" that includes noisy children). For example, when the furnace comes on in this tiny cottage, the blower is loud to the exclusion of every other sound, including the TV. I sometimes want to run outside, hurl the cover off the entrance to the crawl space under the house, crawl in and pummel the furnace with my fists.

Don't usually have that reaction around people, by the way. Knew you'd be wondering.

Is the 'loud talking' of younger people related to use of cell phones? Because people seem to have become louder.

No, what I mean to say is, the vocal intonations of today's speaker is reminiscent of the stentorian tones taken by an imperial senator addressing a rowdy crowd in a Roman forum.