BEING HARD OF HEARING

Because of my age, I am frequently the target of salespeople who want me to have my hearing checked. My mail is full of offers to give me a great deal on a hearing aid. I actually have had my hearing checked from time to time. So far, no one has found a problem.


My mother was deaf. We found salespeople at our door on many occasions, carrying their small black boxes for Mom to try. She would always comply. They had her put on the device, then sit with her back to the salesman, and he would say, "Can you hear me now?" (just like the current day TV commercial) Inevitably, she would say, "No, I don't hear a thing," and he would swear that she was answering him.


When I was quite small, my then teenage brother rigged up an earphone to the old Atwater Kent radio. It let Mom listen to her soap operas - not by ear, but by holding it under her chin. She heard by bone conduction. That's the way she listened to The Romance of Helen Trent and Stella Dallas. I'm not sure when or why she found that this no longer worked for her. Back in those days I could sometimes talk to her if she held an empty paper towel roll to her ear, and I held the other end tightly against my mouth. She didn't hear my natural voice, but could make out most of the words. Some days that didn't work at all.


Mother had a good friend who was associated with a school for the deaf in Philadelphia. I was so young, I have no clear knowledge of this, but I have the impression that she was the founder of the school. I do know that her money supported it. Mother and I would travel to this woman's huge, beautiful home regularly, for lip reading lessons. While they were busy with that, I was allowed to play outside on the grounds of the estate. I often met boys from the school, gardening or mowing lawns. These boys were deaf and mute, and I thought it was great fun to try to communicate with them. They were very patient with me.


Mom learned lip reading so well that many people never knew that she was deaf. I have no idea why she did not learn to sign. I wish she had, and that I had. What I would do was form letters with my fingers to spell words for her - much like this logo from my sidebar. It took time, but it worked for us, and I learned to be a very good speller.


Many years later, my brother, who worked for Bell Telephone, invented a new type of hearing aid. He was pretty excited about it. He and his wife and daughters carried it down to Delaware where Mom was keeping house for her brother at the time. They spent the afternoon talking with our mother. Talking with her! Carrying on a conversation. She was able to hear them clearly. My brother was on top of the world. He had accomplished his life's goal, to let his mother hear again. He left the prototype with her that day. But when they left, she put it on a shelf in the closet and never used it again. At that stage in her life, she simply did not want to hear. She said it was too confusing to her.


I have heard of this kind of thing - people who are deaf or blind for many years, suddenly given back this sense - and being overwhelmed by it. I wonder how I would react in such a situation?

Old Stomping Grounds

It looks like a really beautiful day out there. I was headed out to see what I could see, but the car wouldn't start. Called my son, who will stop by after work. Meantime, I guess I am blogging.


Every once in a while there are scenes on TV news of places that I remember well, but they are no longer as I remember them. One such place that appears quite often is the 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby, PA. These days it is likely to be the site of a murder or something equally as disturbing. I remember it so differently.

When I was five, and six, and seven, my mother would take me into the 69th Street area to shop. We would go up the hill on one side of the street and down the other. We would start at the department store on the corner. I guess I knew that store by heart. The best part was paying for our purchases when the salesgirl put the money into a metal cylinder and sent it through the pneumatic tube - Whoooooosh! - and waiting for the change and sales slip to come back. Remember that? As children, we loved it.

My mother was deaf. She read lips perfectly under ordinary circumstances, but occasionally a sales person would turn away while still talking. Then it was my job to relate the missed information. It made me feel very grown up and important.

For some reason I loved to watch my mother buy stockings. She made it quite a ritual, looking at different shades and weights, running her hand inside the tops of the stockings and holding them up to the light. This puzzled me because she always ended with the same kind.

I also liked buying shoes for myself. I never liked the choice. They were usually ugly brown oxfords. But in those days we tried them on and then stood with our feet inside an x-ray machine and could look down and wiggle our skeleton toes. That made it worthwhile.

Then we would start up the hill, stopping here and there, mostly window shopping. At the top was Kresgies Five and Dime. I got to pick out a small toy there. Then on across the street and down the other side. The very best was at the bottom of the hill again. Schneider's made their own candy and ice cream. We sat at a little round table and ate a pointed scoop of ice cream, served in a round metal dish. There has never been, nor ever will be better ice cream than that! If I got really lucky, Mother would buy a pound of butter creams, half chocolate and half vanilla, before we headed back to the terminal.

Another place I see on TV often is the Aronamink Golf Club. As a youngster, the golf course meant only one thing - sledding! It was a long walk from our house, but it was the best. One of the hills there was almost as good as a roller coaster. Naturally, we called it Dead Man's Hill. One of my earliest admirers (about age eight) used to let me go down, belly-flopping, on top of him, because I was afraid to do it alone. Georgie was a sweetheart. He gave me my first kiss, too. We were in the very front row at a Saturday matinee. Gregory Peck, in Days of Glory, at the Waverly Theater in Aronamink. He told me he loved me. Sadly, I did not return the feeling, and let him know it. But he seemed to bounce back from the disappointment pretty quickly.

Other sites flash on the screen. I don't recognize some of them even though they have familiar names. Isn't that where the bowling alley used to be? I thought the Baptist Church was there on Garret Road. I know the Hoagie Shop was there on Burmont Road. That's where I entered one day to find the old Italian lady sobbing into the sandwiches she was making. I asked what was wrong, and she told me she had just heard that Franklin Roosevelt was dead. (At sixteen, he was the only president I had ever known.) And I recognize that corner, where Schline's Delicatessan used to be. They had the most wonderful cookies in big canisters, and Mrs. Schline always handed me an extra one.

I wonder if I would find my way around the old neighborhood if I returned today?