Listen up: Lions clubs want your old hearing aids

Q. My neighbor recently died three weeks after buying two brand-new hearing aids. I’d really hate to see them simply thrown away when they might help someone who can’t afford one. Do you know anywhere we can donate them?

A. Sandy Beimfohr was all ears when I told her of your generous offer. Just last year her husband, Jim, was president of the Swansea-Belleville Midtown Lions Club, which, like all Lions, provides both hearing and vision resources to the less fortunate.

To help the estimated 275 million people around the world who are deaf or hearing impaired, Lions clubs offer hearing screenings, awareness campaigns, recreational camps — and a hearing aid recycling program. All you or someone you know has to do is carefully package them and drop them off in one of the convenient eyeglass/hearing aid recycling bins you’ll find at Schnucks stores around the Belleville-Swansea area. Also, many area funeral homes will forward them to the Lions, so you might ask the mortuary that handled the woman’s funeral to see if it would pass them along. If you need additional help, feel free to call the Beimfohrs at their Swansea insurance agency at 234-7145. They’ll be glad to hear from you.

Q. I was selecting a shirt for work today when I noticed what we in grade school used to call a “fruit loop” on the back. What was the original function for that little loop of fabric sewn into the back of shirts between the shoulder blades?

A. Better not let companies like Lands’ End hear you call them “fruit,” because that little loop has helped make them a lot of lettuce over the years.

For decades, clothing manufacturers have added them to some of their most popular products for a practical reason: When you don't have a hanger, those loops provide a handy means of hanging your shirt on a hook. That’s why their official name seems to be “locker (or hanger) loops.”

Just when or where they originated seems to be lost in time, although some credit Gant as the clothing company that started the fashion in the 1940s or ’50s. Some say they were added as a convenience to Ivy Leaguers who might have been changing into their tennis or golf togs and wanted to treat their street clothes with a modicum of civility. (Just why they couldn’t hang them by their collars I don’t know; perhaps they feared them getting bent out of shape.) A few say it may have been an East Coast fashion for sailors making a quick transition from civvies to their seafaring garb.

Whatever the reason, it soon took on new meaning in the world of higher education. On some college campuses, a missing loop meant the male wearer had been claimed by a special sweetie. Other coeds simply tried to grab as many as they could in a kind of reverse panty raid. And, as you know, in grade school, they were open season for anyone to run up behind you and yank.

Q. I keep hearing stories about how well the stock market is doing, but I have yet to find mention of the role played by inflation. I doubt the stock market is much ahead of when Obama seized power and to the extent it may be I think it’s in spite of him instead of due to him. I believe that if the market followed the inflation rate, it would stand above 35,000 today.

A. Before I am buried under another avalanche of anti-Obama mail, please believe me when I say I have no idea how big or small a role any president plays in the movement of the stock market, so I am in no way giving Barack Obama full credit for the ongoing run-up in stock prices. However, if the inflation rate over the last six years matched or exceeded the current market climb, I fear you might have seen Federal Reserve governors and other monetary gurus start to take Depression-era leaps off skyscrapers.

Just look at the numbers: On Jan. 20, 2009 — the day the country started looking to Obama for hope and change — the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 332 points to 7949. As of last Friday, it sat at 18086, an increase of 128 percent. I know you quibble with the official inflation statistics, but we didn’t see a 128 percent inflation rate even during the Whip-Inflation-Now days of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter when double-digit annual increases were being reported. If the stock market had indeed rocketed to 35000 on inflation alone, we would have suffered a 340 percent increase in prices, a rate more common in Venezuela, North Korea and Third World countries.

Instead, according to official Consumer Price Index figures from January 2009 to the end of June, prices have climbed only a smidge above 13 percent. This means that even if I fudge and double that to 25 percent, the Dow Jones would be at 9936 and the NASDAQ would be at 1800 instead of 5210, so inflation is only a small part of the picture.

Today’s trivia

How should campfires be built for optimal heat output and efficiency? (Yes, a physicist has just published his research into this burning topic.)

Answer to Sunday’s trivia: Although Australia had earned a measure of independence by the time it became a federation in 1901, the country did not adopt an official national anthem until 1984, when “Advance Australia Fair” replaced “God Save the Queen.” The song had part of a popular vote in 1977, when it earned 43 percent to beat out “Waltzing Matilda” (28 percent), “God Save the Queen” (19 percent) and “Song of Australia” (10 percent). Still, composed in the 1870s by Peter Dodds McCormick, the song is considered by many as being dull, boring and filled with stilted, archaic language.

This story was originally published July 20, 2015 at 8:20 AM with the headline "Listen up: Lions clubs want your old hearing aids."