Trained To Listen

     There is the story told of the farmer who was persuaded by his nephew to visit
the big city. The young man proudly took the old farmer on a tour of his metropolis.

     At one point as they walked down a busy street, the old man suddenly stopped
and asked, "Did you hear that?"

     The young man looked at the milling pedestrians and the traffic and replied,
"Hear what?"

     "A cricket," the old man said as he walked toward a little tuft of grass growing out
of a crack next to a tall building.

     Sure enough, there tucked in the crack was a cricket making its unique sound.

     The young man was amazed. "How could you hear the sound of a cricket in all this
noise?" he asked. The old farmer didn't say a word and just reached into his pocket,
pulled out a couple of coins and dropped them on the sidewalk.

     Immediately a number of people began to reach for their pockets or look down at the sidewalk.

     The old man observed, "We hear what our ears are trained to hear."