We’re Back Home: HLAA Convention 2008 Comes to a Close

Photo: Executive Director Brenda Battat gets in the spirit with HLAA banquet entertainers Frank and Dean.

The Last Entry

by Barbara Kelley

HLAA Convenntion 2008, June 12-14, is over. Thanks to all those who came and joined the fun. Thanks to sponsors (see www.hearingloss.org) who made the convention a hit. Thanks to the Motorola Foundation for sponsoring this blog you have enjoyed the past few days.

Did you know HLAA conventions are totally communication accessible? Thanks to Deanna Baker and her team of CART reporters. Thanks to Max McCarthy, Les Calloway and Ted Simons for the ALDs, and thanks to the sign language interpreters. Thanks to Jim Montgomery, member from California for taking photos. Thanks to volunteers across the country who work tirelessly on behalf of people with hearing loss, Thanks to the national staff and board of trustees. And, thanks to you, the attendees who traveled far and wide to come.

Thanks to our presenters, keynoter Ollie Cantos (was he a hit or what?) and to the staff from NTID and PEPNet who put on a first-rate research symposium. And, to Rep. Dean Heller (Nevada) who signed onto the tax credit bill. (He visited the exhibit hall and we were featured on the NBC-affiliate on the eleven o’clock news.) And, to the exhibitors from companies who showed their products and talked about what is ahead for people with hearing loss in the service, technology and telecommunications industry. No where else can one find these reps all under one roof!

Next year we are in Nashville in late June. Watch www.hearingloss.org for updates. Nashville should prove to be an easy place to get to and full of wholesome, southern fun…not to mention the ever-popular Exhibit Hall and educational workshops. Let us know what you want to see and do there. We will try to make it happen.

I will leave you this year with a tune from the Frank Sinatra songbook:

 

And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, Ill say it clear,
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.

I’ve lived a life that’s full.
I’ve traveled each and every highway;
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Regrets, I’ve had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried.
I’ve had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;
And may I say – not in a shy way,
No, oh no not me,
I did it my way.

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!

Cheers!

Barbara Kelley

Barbara Kelley is deputy executive director, editor, Hearing Loss Magazine, Hearing Loss Association of America. www.hearingloss.org