In Memoriam: Ira Z. Romoff (1947-2013)

My beloved husband of 43 years, Ira, passed away suddenly on Tuesday, July 30, 2013.  The funeral was held Thursday, August 1, 2013 where open captioning was provided.  I delivered the following eulogy in his honor.  Additional eulogies were delivered by my son and daughter. Donations in his memory can be sent to the Center for Hearing and Communication www.chchearing.org  A detailed review of his professional accomplishments can be found at    http://leasingnews.org/Pages/extra_romoff.html



IRA ROMOFF EULOGY

AUGUST 1, 2013 – Arlene Romoff

 

This is such a difficult task for me – yet seeing all of you here today – friends, family, colleagues - I just have to tell you that it means so much to me to have your support and your love.   

And, speaking of love, let me tell you the story of Arlene and Ira – it goes all the way back to the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan – starting in Mr. Howard’s English class in 1963.  Ira was somehow partial to redheads – and I enjoyed being adored – so that was a pretty good way to begin a 50-year relationship.  Our first date was a New York Philharmonic rehearsal at Lincoln Center – I bought the tickets – a dollar each!  By our next date, the 1964 World’s Fair, romance was blossoming by the moonlit fountains.  And did you know that Ira came to my Sweet 16 Party – and was annoyed that there were other people there!  Next – on to City College – and a ZBT fraternity pin – and then an engagement ring by our senior year. We were married in 1970 – and our first dance was “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

And THAT song was prophetic.  As I started losing my hearing, Ira did, indeed, watch over me.  He was devoted to me, to my well-being, and to my happiness – just as he was always devoted to his family and to his friends. 

 We did work as a team, though – as I became “the banker’s wife” – and we became “Michael and Emily’s Mom and Dad.” We were quite a team, too – and outwardly looked so normal.  Yet my hearing loss was the invisible damper that couldn’t be ignored.  

But – for those of you who knew Ira in business – good strategy can triumph over weaknesses. Just last week, Ira told me that when we were tennis doubles partners, many years ago -  he would call “SWITCH” so our opponents would think I would cross the court – but he knew I wouldn’t hear it, so wouldn’t switch.  (Are you following this? It’s really quite brilliant!) 

We had other strategies too (that I was actually aware of!)  I communicated by subtle facial expressions when I needed his help understanding something – and he always “got it.”  He most surely “watched over me” – and I really needed him to.  And he never faltered – or complained. 

And then a miracle happened – something we never could have imagined back in 1970 - cochlear implant technology allowed me to hear again – and with two devices, one in each ear, I could finally turn to the sound of my name – something that had eluded us for four decades.  Can you imagine the look of joy on Ira’s face when he could finally do something as simple as call my name, and I would turn around?   No matter how many times we did this, we still smiled – it just never seemed to get old.

And that brings us to the present – just as recently as this past weekend, Ira helped me participate in a cochlear implant convention – assisting in my booksignings and such. He took such joy in being that “someone to watch over me” – as if nothing had changed in 43 years.  Except today I’m on my own – but I’m pretty sure he’s still watching over me – and watching over you, too.

 

 

Christopher Plummer: Oscar winner and captioned theater pioneer

Like many others around the world, I watched the Academy Awards presentations on Sunday night. I had actually seen many of the movies, thanks to the Rear Window Captioning available at many movie theaters in New Jersey.  I was particularly delighted, though, when Christopher Plummer won his first Oscar ever for best supporting actor.  Evidently, at age 83, he became the oldest actor to win an Oscar.  I realized that I knew something most people probably didn't - that Christopher Plummer was a first in another area of the entertainment industry.  He was the first actor to star in an open captioned live theater production on Broadway.

The year was 1997, and after a triumphant debut of open captioning at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, the year before, we set our sights on Broadway.  Enlisting the aid of Lisa Carling, director of the Theatre Development Fund's (TDF) Theatre Access Program (TAP), we were hoping that Lisa could convince a Broadway producer to take the pioneering step of open captioning the very first Broadway show ever.

It took a lot of banging on doors, but Lisa finally was successful in lining up captioning of the musical "Jekyll and Hyde" - and we all looked forward to that with great anticipation.  But then we got word that Lisa had also gotten the go-ahead from the producer of "Barrymore", a one-man show with Christopher Plummer in the title role.  I don't know how this came about, but a date to offer open captioning for this show was scheduled before the "Jekyll and Hyde" date, giving "Barrymore" the historic distinction of being the very first open captioned live theater production on Broadway.

There's no doubt that Christopher Plummer must have agreed to this - thus elevating him to hero status for being the pioneer to say yes to this endeavor, which would remove the barriers of exclusion to those with hearing loss who needed the text to enjoy a theater performance.

And so the word went out - with the New York Times running the following article in its September 16, 1997 Arts Section, in anticipation of this historic event:
Device Opens Theatre to the Deaf

When I resurrected this archived article, I beamed it to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  I didn't realize that my own name was actually mentioned in the article, down "below the fold" of the ads running in the center of the piece.  But look closely, and you'll see it there, along with Lisa Carling - who convinced a Broadway producer to be a pioneer - and Don DePew, the court reporter who loaded the very first Broadway script into his computer, and scrolled it in synch with Mr. Plummer's rendition of "Barrymore."

We needed to drum up an audience, so collaborated with the Center for Hearing and Communication, then known as the League for the Hard of Hearing.  We had 150 people turn out for that historic performance.  And then, as I describe in my book, Listening Closely, I got my first cochlear implant one month later.

This performance laid the foundation for C2 Caption Coalition - which provides open captioning to theaters across the country - and was the inspiration for Stagetext in the United Kingdom, which was founded in 2001, and provides open captioning of live theater in the UK.  Captioning has also spread to Australia with Captioning Studio providing live theater captioning as well.  And there are other theaters around the country, independently providing this service as well.

But we knew, back in 1997, that to capture the credibility of open captioning of live theater, it had to be done on Broadway - and with that first performance Christopher Plummer made theater history. 

Now go and "share" this with everyone you know!

TOUR ARLENE ROMOFF'S WEBSITE www.listeningclosely.com

It's been a while since I've blogged - plenty of good reasons for that - but the big news now is that my new website is ready for your viewing pleasure!  Just click here and you'll be taken to http://www.listeningclosely.com/  or really, MY WORLD.

First you'll notice that it's the same color pink as the cover of my book, Listening Closely: A Journey to Bilateral Hearing .  That sets the tone because that book is all about me and hearing loss, and so is this website. 

The categories to choose from:

HOME - quick links to current reviews, articles, book links, videos - plus my favorite picture, Albert Eistein and me taken at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

VIDEOS - all captioned in English and Spanish -  make sure to watch my TV interview - and also my bilateral cochlear implant presentation.

ABOUT ARLENE - a brief introduction, with lots more info available in my books.

RESOURCES - current articles, information about organizations, captioned movies, captioned theater (in the US, UK and Australia!)

AWARDS - nice to be recognized by some wonderful organizations and agencies that care about advocacy and hearing loss - including the NJ State Legislature and Senator Frank Lautenberg!

TESTIMONIALS - reviews of my books, reviews of my presentations - and some fan mail.  Too much to list it all, but a nice sampling.

CONTACT - easy to reach me at  arlene@listeningclosely.com

That's the quick tour - you'll now have to go see for yourself, so CLICK HERE to begin.  I welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.  You might even want to connect with me on LinkedIn !

And don't forget to sign up on this blog to get email notifications of future blog entries.

September 11, 2001: A Remembrance

My thoughts turn now to remembrances of that grim day - September 11, 2001.  It was a day we had been looking forward to, the date chosen months before for the League for the Hard of Hearing's annual Comedy Night.  It was a fundraiser for the League, the agency that is now renamed the Center for Hearing and Communication, but for us, this event was always more than about raising money. It was the one evening where people with hearing loss could experience professional standup comedy without missing a word because open captioning and asisstive listening devices were being provided. Comedy Night had always been our favorite event, and we were expecting almost 100 of our friends and family to join us that evening.  We started getting ready early in the morning, since we would be heading into the city in the afternoon to fine tune all the seating plans.  And then we got the phone call - my sister-in-law saying that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. 

My immediate thoughts were that this was a freakish airline accident.  But we rushed to turn on the television, and followed the horrific news as it unfolded.  I watched in horror as the second plane dove into the second tower - and I vividly remember realizing, incredulously, that one of the towers had just collapsed. 

Needless to say, we knew our plans for the day - and beyond - were forever altered.  My recollections of these events have a second layer of meaning, though.  Like everything else, it always has to do with "hearing."  I was watching the live news coverage, and it was captioned - in realtime.  My cochlear implant was allowing me to hear a lot of the live reporting, but I still needed the captioning to fill in whatever I was missing.  And that meant the difference between being part of this tragic event, or merely a bystander wondering what was going on. 

I mention this because this is in stark contrast to my experience a mere ten years prior, at the beginning of the militrary actions of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.  At that time, my hearing was at the profound level, and my hearing aid didn't help me much, if at all.  Although many television programs were captioned, live breaking news typically had no live captioning coverage - not yet required by law.  I remember desperately trying to understand what General Schwartzkopf was reporting to the news media, so important to me because I had a friend in the military now in harm's way.  I was a nervous bystander, hoping someone else would please tell me what was going on.

September 11, 2001 was vastly different - with the captioning being steadily streamed, so I could know exactly what was going on, at the same time everyone else was.  Being connected isn't just for the good things - it's as important, if not more so, during trying times.  I learned later that it wasn't by chance that the captioning continued to scroll throughout the morning when the reporting was so important.  I read about how the captioners needed to stay at their stations for hours on end without a break because they didn't want to lose their phone connections.  The dedication of these professionals to their consituency is one aspect most of us don't think about - or didn't, until then.  The National Court Reporters Association documented these real stories of how captioning continued on September 11 and they give a glimpse into what was going on behind the scenes. 

I "only" knew one person who perished that day - the mother of my daughter's friend. But knowing even one person makes it personal.  I watched the memorial ceremony on television this morning, the reading of all the names. I could hear most of it with my bilateral cochlear implants, but I had the captions scrolling, as a reminder of why my recollections of that infamous morning ten years ago are still so vivid.