What's That Pig Outdoors? Read online

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  what’s

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  A MEMOIR OF DEAFNESS

  HENRY KISOR

  FOREWORD BY WALKER PERCY

  UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS

  Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield

  First Illinois paperback, 2010

  © 1990, 2010 by Henry Kisor

  Foreword © 1990 by Walker Percy

  Published by arrangement with the author.

  All rights reserved.

  First published in the United States of America

  by Hill and Wang, a division of

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990

  Portions of Chapter 9 originally

  appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times. In the

  interest of privacy, the names of a few

  principals and places have been changed.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  P 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kisor, Henry.

  What’s that pig outdoors? : a memoir of deafness / by Henry Kisor;

  foreword by Walker Percy. — 1st Illinois paperback

  p. cm.

  Originally published: New York : Hill and Wang, 1990.

  ISBN 978-0-252-07739-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Kisor, Henry. 2. Deaf—United States—Biography. I. Title.

  HV2534.K57A3 2010

  362.4’2092—dc22 2009051739

  [B]

  For Debby

  who wouldn’t rest till

  the book was done

  and

  for my parents

  whose faith never flagged

  Contents

  Author’s Note to the Second Edition

  Foreword

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note to the Second Edition

  Except for a few corrected minor errors of memory, the narrative of this edition, first published in 1990, is as it appeared as a slightly updated paperback reprint in 1991. The Epilogue contains all new material, bringing the events of my life up to date as of the winter of 2009 and outlining changes in viewpoint and attitude that have occurred over the years.

  Foreword

  WALKER PERCY

  Here is a remarkable book. It is the autobiography of a man totally deaf since childhood. It is also the story of a man who became a distinguished journalist.

  It would be interesting on either count. There are many autobiographies of deaf people and there are many autobiographies of distinguished journalists. But this is the only life story I have ever read of a deaf person which is also written by a first-class writer. The only exception is Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life, not really comparable because Helen of course was blind as well.

  And it makes all the difference, the splendid writing. If for no other reason it would be worth reading for the entertainment, a lively tale told well—and often extremely funny.

  But what sets it apart and gives it its value is not merely the story of a courageous person overcoming a serious handicap—though it is this—but a moving account from a novel perspective of the universal experience, which most of us take for granted, of the human breakthrough into language. Or what should be a universal human experience. For in fact some of the beneficiaries of this book could well be not only the deaf or the teachers of the deaf or the acquaintances of the deaf but so-called normal hearing people who have still not made the breakthrough into this kind of literacy.

  There is a personal connection here. My daughter is also totally deaf. She and Henry are both remarkable for what they have achieved in a hearing world. But the connection is something else, someone else, an extraordinary, eccentric, and wonderful teacher whom you will meet in these pages.

  A native genius, the teacher somehow had the wit—and I think Henry would agree—to go to the heart of the matter, not only of the education of deaf children but of human intelligence itself. Here is how Henry describes it. She (the Teacher, as we thought of her) arranged things with “parents placing their faces in the baby’s line of vision”—yes, she’d start at eleven months—“so that the child could associate the movements of their lips with objects and actions.” Here of course the Teacher hit upon what Helen Keller had discovered in her own way, the unique human trick of symbolizing, of putting together word and thing. Hers was, is, a revolutionary method which I think still has not received its due.

  It is with her help and that of many others, with his own ebullience and good humor, with good teachers, good family, good wife, and plain guts that Henry Kisor not only made it but made it in high style—in spite of the knocks, some dumb teachers of the deaf, and such atrocities as “psychological testing.”

  Here, among other things, you will also learn about such mysteries as how it is deaf people know when someone comes into a room and says hello behind them. And you will learn much besides, with considerable delight and a kind of smiling wonderment.

  Preface

  There’s an old joke about three elderly deaf gentlemen, all lipreaders, aboard a train.

  As it comes into a station, one looks out the window and says, “Ah, it’s Weston.”

  “Wednesday?” says the second. “I thought it was Thursday.”

  “Thirsty?” says the third. “I am, too. Let’s have a drink.”

  This tale illustrates a central truth of deafness: lipreading is full of snares and delusions. The term “lipreading” itself is technically a misnomer, for the act involves much more than merely watching movements of the lips. “Speechreading” is a more accurate term; some educators of the deaf call it “visual hearing.” (I use “lipreading” here simply because it’s the common term in the hearing world.) Broken into its components, lipreading seems an almost impossible circus trick, like juggling Indian clubs while spinning a dinner plate on one’s forehead.

  That story about the three old gents illustrates the biggest problem of lipreading: many sounds look identical. “M,” “p,” and “b” are made by bringing the lips together. “T,” “d,” and “l” all take shape with the tongue on the roof of the mouth just behind the teeth. As a result, the words “bat,” “bad,” “ban,” “mat,” “mad,” “man,” “pat,” “pad,” and “pan” all look exactly alike. To the eye there is no difference between “s” and “z.” Sounds formed in the back of the throat are impossible to distinguish from one another. “Cat” and “hat” can’t be told apart, let alone “mama” and “papa.”

  Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone and a teacher of the deaf, concocted a famous “trap sentence” to illustrate the ambiguities of lipreading. He would say, “It rate ferry aren’t hadn’t four that reason high knit donned co.” A deaf lipreader might think Bell had said, “It rained very hard and for that reason I did not go.”

  Lipreading is not so much a skill as it is a knack, and it’s best cultivated at a very young age. A tiny child’s linguistic world is a simple one: two adults—mother and father—and perhaps a sibling or two. Their words and gestures become familiar and predictable. As the child grows older, that world expands, but it is still largely a small, familiar, and comfortable one of friends and school, of other children’s mothers and teacher
s.

  In the 1940s and 1950s, when I was growing up, almost all American elementary school teachers were women. American women, whose culture does not train them to suppress their feelings, are much easier for most deaf children and deaf adults to understand than are most American men, who have grown up in a society that values a poker face. For a lipreader, expressiveness must substitute for inflections and differences in emphasis that shade the meanings of spoken words. A cock of the head or slightly raised eyebrows, for example, can mean a question is being asked. Brows that reach the roof can indicate disbelief. A single raised eyebrow implies skepticism or contempt. The sentence “It was you who said it” can have three meanings, depending on whether the stress is on “was,” “you,” or “said.” A nod of the head, a jut of the jaw may be the only clues that a word is being emphasized.

  Even region and nationality make a difference in expressiveness. In adulthood I have found that New Yorkers, who speak as fast as they can while moving their lips as little as possible, are exceptionally difficult to understand, while American Southerners of both sexes seem warmly expressive, relaxed, and easy to lipread. Foreigners, who tend to form words deep in the mouth and throat rather than with the lips, can be frustrating targets for the American lipreader. English-speaking French and Italians are relatively easy to understand, once the lipreader is accustomed to their particular accents, for their body language is eloquent and helps plug the holes of understanding.

  Even for a child, the major component of lipreading is guesswork. It’s often said that only 30 to 40 percent of lipreading is actual “reading” of each word; the rest is “context guessing” to fill in the gaps between the words that are actually understood. Did the teacher say “hat” or “cat”? The last three words of her sentence—“Put the hat on your head”—tells the deaf child that the teacher can’t be talking about a cat.

  Early on, youngsters with a knack for lipreading often learn that much of what people say in everyday situations can be predicted. Most of the time, for example, a dime-store salesclerk will say, “That’ll be X dollars and XX cents” (a sum confirmable with a quick glance at the cash-register readout) and “Thank you. Have a nice day.”

  In this way lipreading is like filling in the blanks in a crossword puzzle. It’s far easier for the lipreader to understand someone if he already knows the subject of the conversation, for he can anticipate the words used to discuss it. If the subject is, for example, the Chicago Bears, a deaf pro football enthusiast will unconsciously be watching for proper names such as “Ditka” or even “Wojciechowski”—words he’d never understand in any other context.

  Proper names are the lipreader’s bane. We never catch names during introductions; “John Smith” is easy enough, but “Matilda Grosvenor” will fly right past. As an adult, I learned long ago, I can in certain situations simply ask for the other person’s business card and at an opportune time sneak a look at it. Often, however, I must fall back on an old deaf person’s gambit I learned as a youngster: if I am introduced to a stranger, then must repeat the introduction to someone else, I mumble inaudibly and allow those concerned to smile thinly and perform the introductions themselves.

  Conversations among more than three or four people are nearly impossible for even highly skilled lipreaders to follow. It takes a few moments to catch the rhythm and sense of one person’s words; by the time we’re in the groove, someone else will be speaking. Often we never catch up, falling further and further behind as our minds slowly make sense of what we’re seeing. Once in a while the light of understanding will shine upon us long after the talk has passed to another topic, and we’ll drop into the conversation a comment or observation based on the old subject. It might be witty—even brilliant—but it will land with all the grace of a gooney bird on an asphalt runway. Fortunately, early on my friends learned to be amusedly tolerant of these appalling non sequiturs.

  For lipreaders, one-on-one conversations are much easier—easiest if our interlocutors are at all familiar to us. It will take anywhere from a few moments to a few days to become accustomed to a stranger’s speech, depending on how limber and expressive the stranger’s mouth and face are. I can consistently understand somewhat fewer than 50 percent of the people I meet for the first time, but familiarity will raise the level of understanding to 75 to 80 percent. Perhaps 10 percent of the people I come across will always be impossible to lipread.

  There is, fortunately, a good deal of humor in the lipreader’s predicament. Since I was a child, some of my misunderstandings have brought gales of laughter I couldn’t help joining in with. A few have become oft-told family anecdotes. Some years ago, for example, during the flu season, I sat one afternoon in the living room reading a book while suffering from a typhoon in the bowels. Suddenly and prodigiously I broke wind. My elder son, Colin, then five years old, dashed in wide-eyed from the kitchen and inquired, “What’s that big loud noise?”

  Mystified, I arose from the couch, peered out the window, and said, “What pig outdoors?”

  My son stared at me dumbfoundedly. What pig?

  Go ahead, look in the mirror and watch your lips: to a lipreader “What’s that big loud noise” looks exactly like “What’s that pig outdoors?”

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  Only connect! . . . Live in fragments no longer.

  Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed

  of the isolation that is life to either, will die.

  —E. M. FORSTER, Howards End

  When we newspapermen turn the last page of our lives, we are praised at the wake and forsaken after the grave. Our achievements, after all, are as transitory as the events we chronicle. What will we have produced that will last? In my case, perhaps this book about my deafness.

  One of the reasons I have written it is to help fill a void. The body of literature about the deaf by the deaf is rather small. A good deal more has been produced by educators of the deaf, parents of the deaf, and offspring of the deaf. Much of it is valuable but tinged by second-handedness. Other than modest and often artless testimonials, chiefly published by small specialty presses and marketed within the deaf community, little has been written by the deaf themselves. Historically, their handicap has kept most—especially those born deaf—from achieving the command of English necessary for literary accomplishment. Happily, all this is beginning to change.

  Another impetus for this book comes from an extraordinary series of events that occurred in March 1988 in Washington, D.C. It began with the proclamation that “deaf people are not ready to function in a hearing world.” What a stupid thing for the chairwoman of the board of a university for the deaf to say! When the news arrived at the Chicago Sun-Times, where I am an editor and critic, I was astonished. But soon my surprise gave way to gratification, some amusement, and not a little dismay.

  I have long been accustomed to the paternalism of all too many hearing educators toward the deaf. Until then it had seemed a subtle and silent paternalism, not an overt one. But when Jane Spilman brought it to the surface, she set in motion a tidal wave that is still lapping on the shores of deafness around the world.

  She made the remark in attempting to justify the appointment of Elisabeth Ann Zinser as the new president of Gallaudet University, the nation’s only liberal arts institution for the deaf. Spilman and her board of directors had chosen Zinser, the only one of the three finalists for the position who was not deaf, despite months of urging from both deaf and hearing people that the new president share the students’ deafness. By all accounts, Zinser, who was then vice president of academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, was a competent and even brilliant administrator. But she had no experience with the deaf and, like Spilman, could not speak sign language, the most common method of communication at Gallaudet.

  To the students and most of the faculty, the appointment—never mind Spilman’s inc
redible remark—was incendiary. It was as if a white had been chosen president of a college for blacks because they were too incompetent to produce one themselves. But, as with blacks, there are successful deaf scientists, lawyers, journalists, professors (at hearing colleges as well), deans, dentists, and doctors. Why not a college president? Especially at their own university?

  The ensuing events were like a replay of the campus demonstrations of the 1960s. The Gallaudet students, galvanized into uniting against the ignorance, thoughtlessness, and paternalism that for so long had been their lot, took to the streets. They waved placards, blocked traffic, and chanted slogans in sign language. The nation’s news media, weary of a long and dull presidential primary campaign, descended on the campus. Jesse Jackson, that canny campaigner and old civil rights worker, was photographed clasping hands in victory with student marchers.

  At first I was appalled. After all, I considered myself the unlikeliest person to sympathize with campus upheaval of any kind. I am middle-aged and vividly remember the abortive college sit-ins and takeovers of the 1960s and 1970s. Today I’m paying thousands of dollars a year in tuition for my own collegian. I had expected I would have little accord with anything that disrupted the expensive process of higher learning.

  But within a day or two I began marching with the Gallaudet students in spirit if not in person. After all, right was on their—our—side. So, it turned out, was might. The students’ storming of their Bastille was no noisy and ineffectual campus rebellion, but a true revolution in which an oppressed but bright and well-organized group succeeded in seizing its rightful share of power.

  To my considerable delight, the board of directors, under enormous pressure, caved in to all the student and faculty demands: that there be no reprisals against protesters, that Spilman resign, and that a majority of the board be constituted of the hearing-impaired. (Only four of its members were deaf, and all had voted against Zinser’s appointment.) They also gave the presidency to one of the deaf finalists they had passed over: Irving King Jordan, Jr., the popular dean of the Gallaudet college of arts and sciences. The board immediately elected a deaf chairman, Philip Bravin, a New York business executive, and began restructuring itself to give hearing-impaired members a majority.