As a kid growing up in suburban Philadelphia, I was well familiar with famous Jersey singer Frankie Valli, who rocketed to fame as the front man for The Four Seasons, as well as for a slew of hits he recorded on his own. I can’t sing a note — I am so bad I lip-synch “Happy Birthday” out of respect for the celebrant — but Frankie and I shared something neither one of us would wish on anyone: severe, progressive, degenerative hearing loss. We both had otosclerosis, which methodically robbed us of our hearing.
I was eight when I was diagnosed. Frankie was twenty years older than me and began suffering from it soon after I did, in 1967. He was a big star, and the disease put his meteoric fame in serous jeopardy. Frankie sang from memory for several years, but eventually reached a point where he had no choice but to risk a very delicate ear surgery. Few surgeons were skilled enough to pull it off.
My story was similar, but in some ways worse because I had it in both ears. My mother dragged me to a slew of general practitioners and specialists, hoping that someone — anyone — could figure out what the heck the problem was. One doctor said there was nothing wrong with me; that I was simply a stubborn little boy who wouldn’t listen. She yelled at him, which my mother never did, and took me on to the next. Medicine and ear surgery — and the expertise of doctors who dealt with hearing problems — was far different then than today.
Frankie, meanwhile, found the right guy and had successful inner ear reconstruction surgery performed by Los Angeles ear specialist Dr. Victor Goodhill, who restored most of Frankie’s hearing by 1980. By then I had endured two surgeries that didn’t work. But what did work was reading a newspaper and learning about Frankie’s recovery.
“If Frankie can do it,” I thought, “I can do it.”
I never gave up hope. Or optimism. Or the determination to adapt, adjust, and staying positive. Just because I bottomed out shortly after college — when I was on the verge of losing my fledgling corporate career because I was basically lip-reading since I could no longer hear — I never let the frustration stop me from the doing the best I could as my adult life unfolded.
After all, I kept reminding myself, “If Frankie can it, I can do it.”
I was pretty desperate when luck arrived in the form of a newspaper story about an office burglary in Tampa, Florida. The office was that of Dr. Brown Farrior, who was pushing 80 at the time and easing into retirement. He was one of the five top ear surgeons in the world but no longer taking new patients. With nothing to lose, I rang his office and asked if he would see me; and possibly steer me toward someone — anyone — who could simply stop it. I was functionally deaf but not totally. Functional deafness seemed like a win.
I was living in Ocala at the time, a two-hour highway trek north of Dr. Farrior’s office. He agreed to see me and give me a referral. I drove down in a bad predicament. We met and talked and he studied the previous scar tracks of my earlier operations, curious whose work he was examining. I told him the rebuilds were the handiwork of Bernard and Max Ronis, ear specialists in Philadelphia. Theirs were noble, albeit unsuccessful, efforts.
“Good man, Ronis,” Dr. Farrior said. A little old fireplug of a man with twinkling blue eyes, the doc looked at me and asked what I wanted.
“Just stop it,” I said. “Stop it and I can live with it. I don’t want to be deaf.”
He examined both inner ears again. I think he viewed my stereo messes as a challenge.
Finally he said, “I will take you. It will be difficult. You will come here every two weeks for the next year — at least. You will do what I say. The first time you don’t, I will have nothing further to do with you.”
He waited for my answer, which I ended up keeping forever. “I will do it; and I will never be late.”
Dr. Farrior and I became very close over the next few years. His son Jay, destined to become a famous ear surgeon on his own, was finishing his residency at Johns Hopkins, swooped down in the nick of time to assist with the most delicate of my final reconstructions. While Jay and his father were not close, I became close to both. And my life has been better for that in ways that go way beyond scoring better on audiograms.
I wrote about some of the mayhem Dr. Brown Farrior and I got into in my first book “Critters, Fish & Other Troublemakers,” and retold some of those stories when I flew back, crying, from Puerto Rico to attend his funeral. I was with Dr. Jay Farrior on a three-day, three-river buddy fly fishing trip deep in the Colorado mountains when word of the 9/11 attacks came on the news. Jay was with me when I received the telephone call that a close friend — George Simmons — had perished on American flight #77 when it was skyjacked into the Pentagon. I cried most of the drive to Gunnison, three-plus hours away. Jay was the right guy to have in the car at the time.
Thanks to father and son, my hearing was restored well enough to live a life I never dreamed possible. I have seen the world and have had an extraordinary life, thanks largely to the friends I have made along the way. None of that happens without my hearing being restored, just as Frankie Valli doesn’t keep packing them in at age 81 without his surgical magician doing the trick too.
The piece that was missing for me, of course, was that Frankie never knew the impact he had on me when I was a scared kid facing long odds and scalpel scars. He would have no reason to.
A few days ago I decided to change all that. I flew into Charlotte a day early because he was doing a show. I drafted a note on the airplane, then carefully transcribed it onto a thank you card and had the venue manager deliver it back stage. I told Frankie we had traveled different roads through the same dark place but both emerged safely on the other side. And I thanked him for that. After all, I wrote, if he could do it — I could do it.
And then I enjoyed his show. Not just watching it, but hearing it. Every nostalgic note. Frankie was doing what he loves to do; and I get up each day doing the same. Parallel roads to different places.
I think it is important to tell people things like this, whether you know them or not. Not just so they can read it or hear it, but for your own well-being. We enrich our own lives simply by saying thanks.
I had dinner with Dr. Jay Farrior a couple months back when he came through Denver. We reminisced about a lot of things. He is nearing retirement and has delivered the miracle of sound to too many to count. To this day we remain close. His dad, and Frankie, would appreciate that too.