There are many places that a twelve-year-old boy longs to be. Lying in a hospital bed in total darkness is not one of them.
From the time of my accident in October 1951 until late December of that year, I was in and out of the hospital. The doctors were trying everything medically available at the time to restore at least part of my vision.
Compared with today’s twenty-first-century technology and treatments, the methods of the 1940s and 1950s seem practically barbaric. Their intentions were good, but the applications, and their results, could be absolutely frightening.
Dr. Brophy, my original physician, had been trying to strengthen my eyes for years, but it was not working very well. His successor, Dr. Saraydarian, was convinced that he could help bring about a miracle, something my family and friends were praying hard for.
Doctor Saraydarian was a unique and quirky guy. I can still vividly recall his trademark. He incessantly chewed gum. It struck me as an odd habit for a doctor, but at least he wasn’t a dentist. His brand of choice was a bold one, Beech-Nut Gum. A spin-off from their successful chewing tobacco brand, Beech-Nut Gum came in a bright yellow wrapper that shined like gold, so I could spot it from a distance even when I had limited sight. It also had quite a powerful fragrance. I knew that Dr. Saraydarian was coming moments before he entered the room. The sweet, distinctive Beech-Nut smell and the snapping and cracking of the gum in his mouth were a dead giveaway.
My doctor’s first choice of treatment was to operate on my eyes, with the hope of putting the retinas back in their proper place, assisting them in functioning again. The operation went well, but they wouldn’t know whether it was a complete success until two weeks later, when the muscles and tendons had a chance to settle. The slightest jolt or movement, even a cough, could jar the retinas and undo the hours spent in the operating room. The remedy for that was to completely immobilize me, ensuring that I wouldn’t unwittingly do more damage to myself.
How do you keep a young boy from moving, or from scratching his nose? The answer was to keep me strapped down, with sandbags piled high on both sides of my head, blocking me from turning in either direction. I was to be kept as still as a statue for two weeks.
For the next fourteen days, I was forced to eat my meals through a straw. All necessary bodily functions had to be done from my bed as I lay there. It was a helpless feeling, extremely boring and monotonous. I held still, hoping against hope that when it was done, I’d be able to have full vision, strong eyes, and the ability to live a normal life, like other kids my age.
Unfortunately, that was not in God’s will. The operation was a failure.
The ball’s hitting me between the eyes had done too much damage to be reversed by a scalpel. Dr. Saraydarian did not give up. He decided that the next best course of treatment was to fill my bloodstream with what was known as “foreign protein.”
Developed in 1893, foreign protein injections were the predecessors to early versions of vaccine shots. In my case, they were hoping to use these foreign antibodies to dry up the blood in selected spots of my veins and arteries to help sweat and filter out any blood clots forming near my eyes. It was a long shot, but worth the effort, according to the medical community.
I was given these series of foreign protein shots every other day. They were extremely painful, almost unbearable. Minutes after the needle went in, my legs began to tighten up, making it hard to walk. Once again, I put up with the discomfort in the hope that it would bring a cure. As was the case with the previous operation, the injections proved to be a failure, too.
As much of a letdown as these ineffective treatments were for me, they were a thousand times worse for my parents. My mother and father both ached for a sign that I might have even a glimmer of eyesight left. It seemed like a lost cause.
In a last-ditch effort, my parents went to see Dr. Saraydarian to offer up one of their eyes as a transplant for me, so that my vision could be restored. They were each prepared to go through life with only one eye, so that I might be able to see from both of mine.
Whenever I stop to think about that for a moment, I am moved to tears. What great courage it must have taken on the part of my mother and father to make such a request. As a parent, I can now understand the unconditional love that one feels for one’s children, and how one would sacrifice anything to make sure that they were safe and secure, but their act went above and beyond that.
Unfortunately, it would not have been of any use.
Doctor Saraydarian was sympathetic to their plea, but he gently explained that such a transplant was the stuff of theory in 1951. Plenty of medical journals at the time were discussing the idea, but there was no possible way to achieve it with the tools and data known then. The doctor promised to keep my parents updated as progress was made, and also to put me at the top of the list for any procedures that might become available.
With no medical solution seemingly possible, my parents continued with the only thing they were confident would help give me my former life back: prayer.
Their faith had been a comfort to them throughout their lives. My parents had seen miracles great and small. Because of this, no matter their situation or circumstances, they were always able to feel joy and to count their many blessings. Mom and Dad believed in giving thanks in prayer to the Lord. This would be the biggest request they would ever make of Him.
As Catholics, my mother and father were also used to calling on saints and angels for help.
They were not using the saints as a replacement or substitute for God, or as idols; they were relying on them as intermediaries. The belief behind this is that saints are closer to God than we are, so that if we ask them for assistance in prayer, they can presumably bring our requests to Him on our behalf. It’s the same as if you asked a friend to pray for and with you. These friends just happen to be departed holy men and women. It is still His will ultimately that prevails.
Every saint has a special cause. Saint Lucy is the patron saint of the blind, so of course my parents sought her intercession on my behalf. In addition, they asked for the help of Saint Jude, Saint Rita, and Saint Anthony, all three of whom are especially known as the patron saints of impossible causes. Mine was as impossible as you could get.
My father’s most passionate requests were directed to our family’s patron, Saint Joseph.
As the man who protected, loved, and adopted Mary’s newborn son, Jesus, teaching him his faith and the values of hard work, Saint Joseph is uniquely honored as the patron saint of fathers, workers, and families. Dad turned to him more than any other, in the hope that Saint Joseph would whisper my family’s prayers for me into the ear of Jesus. They sought a miracle that would fit the Lord’s will, helping me to live a productive and fruitful life.
I was finally released from the hospital a few weeks after the accident.
When I got back to daily life in the projects, it was odd at first. Doctor Saraydarian gave orders that I was not allowed to go to school. He wanted me to rest, at least until the summer. There was also the possibility that I might be called back into the hospital for follow-up operations and procedures. My routine was disrupted. I was now homebound, and my mother was being even more careful than ever.
Staying confined to a hospital bed was bad enough, but being at home all day felt like being trapped in a cage. I was in my own bed, yes, and extremely grateful for that, but I missed doing the things that most people take for granted.
My mobility was limited. I knew the layout of our apartment by heart but was still scared of tripping over something or bumping into and breaking objects as I walked around. I usually needed an escort, and that was extremely frustrating.
Telling time was another normality that disappeared with the accident. Always good at math, I was one of the first kids in the neighborhood to figure out how to decipher the numbers on a clock, and the “big hand, little hand” stuff. It became very easy. I treasured the first watch I ever wore, happily telling anyone who asked, and even some who didn’t, what time it was. It made me sad to realize that from now on I would have to ask others for the time. I wouldn’t be able to look at a clock or watch again to do it for myself.
Reading was also a special pleasure taken from me by my accident. The school used to provide me with oversized books. I read all of them. From Tom Sawyer to Robin Hood, I would get lost in worlds that I could only dream of. Without sight, those stories would remain the stuff of dreams. I was entirely dependent on someone reading to me. It made me quite upset.
My father knew that I missed reading the sports pages. In the New York metro area where we lived, there were dozens of morning, afternoon, and evening papers, all with award-winning sports columnists. Each morning, Dad would come home from his night shift with a stack of newspapers in hand. I knew that he must have been dead tired from his work as a pressman, but he never failed to take at least a half hour to sit there with me and read each and every article about baseball, sometimes twice for good measure. We’d sit at the kitchen table and talk about sports for another thirty minutes or so, before he went off to bed to rest for work later that night.
In an effort to keep me occupied, and from being a shut-in, my mother bought a long extension cord. She plugged our radio into it. There were no small portable radios back then, or at least ones we could afford, so this was a makeshift option. On nice weather days, Mom would run that cord out of the front window and drag the radio outside. I would sit by the porch listening to it as the world passed by.
I was never a big fan of music before the accident. Sports was more my thing. Since baseball season was over, there weren’t many sporting events to listen to on the radio as I sat there, so—out of sheer necessity—I tuned in several of the local New York area music stations.
Rock and roll hadn’t really made a splash yet. The pop musicians of the day were people like Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Patti Page, Kay Starr, Nat King Cole, and, of course, Frank Sinatra. The “Chairman of the Board,” Sinatra, was a local boy. His hometown, Hoboken, was right next to Jersey City and there were many people in my neighborhood who knew him and his family. Years later, I would get to know them, too, but for now I was just a fan.
I loved all of the singers, but was most captivated by the teen idol of the day, Johnnie Ray. He was the Donnie Osmond, New Kids on the Block, *NSYNC, Justin Bieber, and One Direction of 1951, all wrapped up into one. Ray’s two biggest songs that year were melancholy ballads called “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud That Cried.” He and his band, the Four Lads, were very theatrical and gained large audiences with their swerving and swaying. A young Elvis Presley copied Ray to a certain extent. Johnnie Ray was known as “The Prince of Wails.” I was a big admirer.
Luckily, despite the fears my parents had of shunning and isolation, the neighbors and their children responded to me and my situation with love, concern, and care. Our bell rang nightly as people came by to check on me, and to ask my parents if there was any way they could help.
The boys and girls I played and hung out with also made every effort to welcome me back and to act like nothing was different.
My sister Maureen, who despite being younger was extremely protective of me and was pretty tough on anyone who got in her way or mine, often walked me over to the “rink” when the other kids were playing their sandlot and pickup games. While I couldn’t actually play ball with them, I was made their manager or coach during games. They let me call plays, pick teams, make substitutions, and generally stay involved. It was very therapeutic.
One of my best neighborhood friends was a boy named Louis Schuman, who also happened to be blind. I actually got to know Louis before my accident, when he was a student at PS 22. His parents owned a clothing store not far from our home. We became close buddies. Despite his disability, Louis was an amazing piano player. I was fascinated by that. Something else that captivated me was his ability to easily read Braille.
Braille is a series of raised dots on heavy paper that was devised by a young boy in France and introduced in 1839, one hundred years before I was born. It quickly became the standard method for blind people to read and write. My friend Louis was proficient at it. Whenever I held the Braille cards and books he carried and felt the funny little bumps on them, I figured it was impossible to learn unless you’d been doing it since you were little, as he had.
Louis was also a big baseball fan. We used to spend hours talking about our favorite players and teams. It really kept my mind off of things. I did have moments of depression, though, especially when Louis and the other kids were in school.
In early December, Doctor Saraydarian had some bad news for me and my parents. I was to be admitted back into the hospital for more foreign protein injections and further testing. There was no determination of how long I’d be in there. I was crushed.
My dad, God bless him, took out our enormous reel-to-reel tape recorder and continued to read all of the newspaper articles on tape so that I wouldn’t miss a beat. Each day, he would deliver the messages to the hospital to keep me company while I recuperated. Mom would say a few words to me at the end of each tape. Listening to these recordings was incredibly comforting. My parents were there with me, even when they weren’t.
I had a radio in my room, so that occupied me, too, but there were no 24/7 sports talk stations back then like we have today. The closest thing we had to a Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, Tony Kornheiser, Mike Francesa, or Colin Cowherd was a guy named Stan Lomax, who did a fifteen-minute sports wrap-up show each night on WOR. I couldn’t wait to hear his show.
The big topic of conversation the week that I was readmitted was that the Yankees superstar center fielder, Joe DiMaggio, was retiring after a thirteen-year Hall of Fame career. It was huge news. I remember the doctors, orderlies, and nurses buzzing about it in the hallway. They were doubtful that his replacement, some fresh-faced kid from Oklahoma named Mickey Mantle, would ever be able to fill the shoes of, or live up to, the departing legend.
Years later I spoke to both DiMaggio and Mantle about their “changing of the Yankee guard.” Joe said that he was mournful about having to end his career and stop playing the game he loved, but the well wishes he’d gotten from fans all over the world since that day made him feel better. Mickey told me that he was terrified that his time as a Yankee was over before it even began. In the second game of the 1951 World Series, Mantle, the right fielder that day, was chasing down a fly ball when DiMaggio called him off. Mickey slowed up and caught his spikes in a drainpipe on the field. His knee blew out and he had to be carted off the field. The damage limited his mobility from that day on. Mantle spent the rest of his stellar career in and out of surgery. Like me, he never enjoyed being in a hospital bed.
The thing that hurt the most about this December admission was the timing. Christmas was just a few weeks away, and they couldn’t give me any guarantees that I’d be home before then. Going through this ordeal was bad enough, but having to spend the holidays in confinement was almost too much to bear.
Early on the morning of December 24, Doctor Saraydarian came into my room. There might have been cheerful Christmas carols playing in the background, but I tuned them out. The merriest sound I heard was my doctor saying, “Ed, you are cleared to go home.” I nearly leaped out of the bed to hug him.
Since it was Christmas Eve and the hospital was understaffed, it took a while for them to get in touch with my parents to let them know they could pick me up, and to get the paperwork processed for my discharge. Late in the afternoon, I left the Jersey City Medical Center, after what was to be my last extended stay. I was happy, but couldn’t go without leaving a little Christmas present behind for Dr. Saraydarian.
While I didn’t have any frankincense or myrrh to give, I’m sure the good doctor appreciated my gift of gold—well, a pack of Beech-Nut Gum with its shiny golden wrappers, anyway.
I settled back in at home and opened presents with my sister. The first thing that our family did on Christmas Day was go to church to thank God for all of the blessings He had given to us and continued to give, no matter what trials we faced.
As usual, the Christmas Day service was completely packed. It was standing room only at the Church of the Assumption. Back then, before the rules were changed, there was only one way to receive communion. There was no walking up the aisle and putting your palms out for a minister to place the Host in your hands to be immediately consumed. It was a truly communal experience, with the entire congregation kneeling along a railing at the front of the church. The priest would then walk along the railing distributing communion. When he approached you, the requirement was to stick out your tongue so that the Eucharist could be placed there and you could head back to your pew to pray.
When it came time for communion, I asked my sister Maureen to walk me up and to kneel next to me. Since it was crowded and the music was loud, I wasn’t able to hear the priest, or the accompanying altar boy who held a small plate under your chin to catch any crumbs that might accidentally drop, as they made their way down along the railing. To remedy this, I told my sister to give me a little nudge or tap when the pastor was close, so that I could stick my tongue out. Maureen, ever the practical joker, decided to trick me. She bumped me with her elbow while the priest was still about eighty feet away.
There I kneeled, for what seemed like an eternity, with my tongue sticking out, for God and everyone else in the church to see, until they reached me minutes later. My mouth was as dry as the Sahara by the time the sacred bread was placed in it. I was pretty steamed at Maureen, but eventually we had a good laugh about it.
A little over a week after I was released from the hospital, on January 3, 1952, I officially became a teenager.
Turning thirteen was exciting, but I was still filled with dread. I wouldn’t be going back to the hospital, but I also wouldn’t be regaining my sight.
That night, my Uncle Eugene stopped by to wish me a happy birthday. He brought a present with him, one that definitely topped his baseball jersey from a year before.
“Unc,” as I called him, handed me a small box. As soon as I opened it, I could feel the familiar contours and shape of a watch and band. This confused me. Why would my uncle give me a watch? He knew that I loved telling time, but he surely also had to know that I wouldn’t be able to see the dial. Any watches that I wore would be purely for decoration.
Sensing my puzzlement, Uncle Eugene took the watch from me. I heard him do something to it before handing it back. When I held it again, I noticed that the glass face on the watch, which was normally used to protect the hands and mechanism, was open. This was new. I’d never felt a timepiece like this before.
Uncle Eugene had given me a Braille watch.
Specially made for blind people to tell time, Braille watches are ingenious. They look identical to other watches, except that the protective crystal part can be flipped up by pressing a button on the side, allowing its wearer to feel the hands, as well as raised bumps next to the numbers. It was, and still is, a terrific innovation. I’ve worn a Braille watch ever since my thirteenth birthday.
Once again, time was on my side.
A BRAILLE WATCH was a nice diversion. I thanked Uncle Eugene for it, but I was still a little gloomy. My dad sensed this, and came into my room to chat with me before heading off to work. “What’s wrong, pal?” he said with concern. I opened up to him, shouting “I’m thirteen and my life is over!” He assured me that wasn’t the case, that I had a lot going for me. I knew that he was trying his best to help, but I lashed out with the only thing I could think of to say, “I’m handicapped! I can’t do anything without someone else! What am I going to do now with my life?”
I didn’t mean to hurt my father. I realized that by raising my voice to him, I might have gone over the line a bit. It certainly wasn’t his fault; I was just confused and scared. Despite this, Dad left in good spirits, after assuring me that with God’s help, everything would be okay.
When Dad got to work, with our conversation fresh in his mind, he happened to mention to some of his coworkers that it was my birthday and how low I was feeling. These were crusty, tough Hudson County union guys, straight out of central casting. They all worked the night shift for a company called ALCO Gravure, on the Hoboken waterfront, in a drafty 130,000-square-foot warehouse. Their job, as pressmen, was to do the tedious heavy lifting and labor required to put out daily and weekend editions of papers like the New York Times, as well as catalogs and inserts for stores like Macy’s, Sears & Roebuck, and Montgomery Ward.
As flinty as they seemed on the outside, they were all family men and big teddy bears at heart. They took up a collection for me and gave my father money to buy a special birthday gift.
The next morning, I went food shopping with my mother and sister before my dad got home. When we returned, I entered our apartment to the sounds of Kay Starr’s “Wheel of Fortune” filling the tiny front room. As I listened to Ms. Starr’s angelic voice singing about fate smiling on her, I noticed something. This wasn’t the radio. The sound was full of scratches and hisses, not the clear music I was accustomed to coming in over the airwaves.
My father called me from a corner of the room. “Come over here, Ed, I want you to feel something.” I followed the sounds of the music to him. When I got to the source, Dad took my hand and put it on an unfamiliar object. Within seconds, I recognized it as an RCA Victrola–style record player. These were very expensive machines, designed to look like pieces of furniture, where the turntable itself is seamlessly blended inside so as not to be noticed. I was stunned. I’d been hoping to get one of those for years, but there was no way we could ever afford one.
My father’s coworkers had chipped in to buy me a Victrola, so that I could listen to my favorite songs and artists whenever I wanted!
Not only that, they gave him extra money to buy a stack of records. Dad told me to be very careful as he handed me the latest vinyl albums from all of my favorite singers. There were 78 rpm ones, 331/3 ones, and even some of the fancy new 45 rpm singles, which had just been introduced two years before. Those felt very tiny in my hands.
I was ecstatic. I listened to the albums over and over again that whole day. I resolved that any extra money I earned or got as a gift from then on would go toward buying new albums, not baseball cards, which was where I’d usually spent my discretionary bucks.
My father came into my room to have a chat with me that night, just as he’d done the night before. He almost began it the same way, too: “How you doing, buddy? I hope you like the selection of records we picked out.” I wanted to make up for our previous conversation, so I cheerfully told him that I loved every one of them. This was, in fact, true. He’d managed to buy almost every album I would have picked out for myself. Dad’s next question caught me completely off guard. “Is the big hit guy in there, the one the girls scream about, you know, the guy that cries?” I said, “You mean Johnnie Ray? Sure, he’s in here. I think he’s terrific.” Dad replied, “You know, one of the guys at the plant told me something interesting about Johnnie Ray last night.”
Hmmm, union guys were talking about a teen pop idol? Okay, now Dad had my attention.
“Did you know that this Johnnie Ray is deaf?” Dad said, nonchalantly.
I responded with disbelief. My father went on to tell me the story of how Johnnie Ray had been in an accident at age thirteen that cost him his hearing. Noting the parallels in our stories, Dad explained that the singer had not let the inevitable depression get to him. Instead, he fought to carve out a successful career in music, despite an injury that could have ended it all.
“Yesterday you told me that your life was over because you were handicapped, that you had no idea what you would do,” Dad said. “You are my son, and I know that God gave you special talents, a passion for sports, and a gift for using words and phrases that make people take notice.”
I was moved by my father’s pride in me, and he continued: “Johnnie Ray was given a gift for music. He could have also walked away from them like you seem to be doing with yours.”
Now I felt bad, but Dad lifted me even higher: “Johnnie Ray honored God by finding a way to use his talents despite the setbacks. He never let his accident stop him. In fact, he used it to bring him to greater places. You can do that, too, Ed.”
Dad’s next words changed my outlook on life forever. “Never forget, son, you might be blind, but you are still alive. God has a plan for you, even without your sight. You have to trust Him and have faith in Him. Look at your blindness this way: It’s not a handicap, it’s an inconvenience.”
That’s been my credo ever since.
A FEW WEEKS later, we had an unseasonably warm early spring day. Dad took me for a walk around town while my sister was in school and my mother was at work. We stopped at our church for morning services and then just ambled from there. We saw some familiar faces along the way and got some good exercise as we chatted and bonded. At one point we found ourselves in front of the Jersey City Printing Company, a big brick building that stretched for a block.
There was a nun sitting outside the building with a basket collecting donations for charity. My father, as was his custom, went over to put a few dollars in the container. I remember the nun saying “God bless you” in a heavy Scottish accent. The events that followed were nothing short of miraculous.
As Dad and I walked in the opposite direction from the building, we were startled as the nun shouted after us, “Sir! Excuse me, sir! Can I speak to you for a moment?” At first, we thought we must have misheard her, or that she was calling for someone else.
We were the only ones around.
Once again, she yelled, “You, sir, with the boy, I’d like to speak to you, please.”
For Catholics like me and my dad, the rule is pretty simple: When a nun gives you directions, you follow them. We walked over, confused and nervous about what she had to say.
“I’d like to know, sir,” said the mysterious nun, as she stood to face us, “why isn’t your son in school today?” My dad sheepishly replied, “This is my son, Ed. He’s blind, Sister, so his doctor doesn’t want him going to school.” The nun’s volume got louder. “I can see that he’s blind, sir. That’s no excuse, doctor or not, to keep him from getting a proper education!”
My dad gently protested, “But, Sister, he’s blind, they don’t think he’s ready for school yet.” The nun’s tone softened as she properly introduced herself. “I’m Sister Hugh,” she said in her Highlands burr, “my order runs the Holy Family School for the Blind here in Hudson County. If you send Ed to our school, I can promise you that we will give him a good education and help him to have full confidence and independence going forward in life.”
While I listened in stunned silence, the two of them spoke for a few more minutes about the details and what it would take for me to start in the fall.
Dad had been made aware of Holy Family even before my accident, but he didn’t know if I was ready for enrollment. With Sister Hugh’s assurance that I was, he was excited to go home to tell my mother that he’d found the perfect school environment for me.
As we walked away, my father turned to ask Sister Hugh about the one thing she had yet to mention. Exactly which order was she and the other nuns at the school members of?
“The Sisters of Saint Joseph of Peace,” she replied. “We are dedicated to Saint Joseph. He is our special patron. The school is named in honor of his place as the protector of Mary and Jesus and of families everywhere.”
I couldn’t see my dad’s face, of course, but I could tell by his grip and the happy bounce in his step that he knew his prayers for my life had been answered.
It would turn out just fine. What I had was not a handicap, it was an inconvenience.