“People like me stay home. They are afraid to socialize because of the difficulty and they are belittled because people don’t understand their problems,” he said.

To give people who are deaf and hard of hearing a place to vent their frustrations and to help themselves, Parquette, 56, is organizing a regular meeting series on the first Sunday of every month at the Milford Police Station at 7 p.m.

“The Lions Club is geared to the blind, said Parquette. “I’m going against the grain; I’m trying to get them to change their philosophy to deal more with the deaf and hard of hearing.”

In 1925, Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind, inspired the Lions Club to address the problems of the blind, but she is quoted as saying being deaf is a worse affliction.

“To be cut off from hearing is to be isolated indeed,” she said.

A possible reason why the Lions chose to pursue vision problems instead of hearing problems was because audio technology wasn’t advanced an the early 1900s. Hearing aids are still much more expensive than glasses, said Parquette, and a set of a quality hearing aids may cost as much as $8,000.

http://www.cabinet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070201/MILFORD01/70201005/-1/milford01