The Man Who Ticks

People who hear a ringing, hissing or ticking in their own ears are suffering from a fairly common complaint called tinnitis (caused by inflammation of the middle ear, drugs, head injuries, neuroses). Tinnitis is generally "subjective" (only the victim hears the ticking).

Sanky Flynn, 30-year-old textile millworker of Greensboro, N.C., has a rare tinnitis that is "objective": in a quiet room, other people can hear his right ear ticking three feet away;* his left ear also ticks, but not so loudly. Flynn's ears tick every 15 seconds.

Long since used to his odd ailment, Flynn grew up with the nickname "Tick Tock." He did not think there was anything particularly unusual about it until he read of another case. Flynn served in the Navy during the war, and Navy doctors suggested no cure.

He said last week that he is not interested in a cure: he is doing fine and has not been sick in the past twelve years. Between 8,000 and 9,000 people, he reported proudly, have stopped him to say: "Let me hear you tick." Flynn is always happy to oblige.

* In J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, the hungry crocodile that had swallowed an eight-day clock went "tick., tick, tick, tick" loud enough to warn Captain Hook of its approach. The crocodile eventually got him anyway; defeated by Peter Pan, the pirate threw himself into the crocodile's waiting jaws.

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