Clerc Scar 15 12-16 October 2009 CONTENTS ===== 15.1 CHASING VISTAS 14 Melanie Bond [Memoir] ===== 15.2 THE HEARING-EAR DOG 12 Kendra Harness [Comic] ===== 15.3 Knowing Mary J. Thornley [Film Review] ===== 15.4 Vignetes of the Deaf Character Edna Edith Sayers [Book Review] ===== 15.5 The Earthworm Leslie Paul Peterson [Parable] ===== 15.6 Why Hearing Parents Don't Sign John Lee Clark [Essay] ===== 15.7 Plugged In Pete McEachen [Comic Strip] ===== 15.8 It's October Again Angela C. Orlando [Memoir] ===== 15.9 I Never Slept with Helen Keller Raymond Luczak [Excerpt] ===== FEEDBACK FRIDAY [Letters to the Editors] ===== We welcome letters to the editor in response to this piece. Send to editor@clercscar.com. We reserve the right to edit letters for space and clarity or not to publish a letter. We are always open to submissions. Submit your writing, artwork, or video to editor@clercscar.com. To subscribe, email subscribe@clercscar.com with the message "Subscribe daily" or "Subscribe weekly." To unsubscribe, email subscribe@clercscar.com with the message "Unsubscribe me." Find us on Twitter and Facebook! Visit our archives or bookstore at http://www.clercscar.com. Copyright 2009 by Clerc Scar. All rights reserved. ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.1 ===== CHASING VISTAS 14 Melanie Bond Words: 1,425 [Memoir] Chapter 41 A Starving Kid After searching high and low for two hours for anything remotely resembling a rusty fast food bucket and coming up woefully short, Dano started his grumbling and whining. In a somewhat unhappy and accusatory voice, he slashed out, "I'm hungry! You were supposed to go get me something to eat, not go driving out in the middle of nowhere! There's nothing to eat here! I'm starving and I'm getting another bad headache!" Poor Dano! He had waited patiently for us to find a place to eat and we kept telling him that it wouldn't be much longer before we found a diner. But after a couple hours of driving fruitlessly on a huge indian reservation, we didn't blame Dano one bit for being cross with us. We made our plaintive excuse by telling him, "That's life!" I know that's not much consolation for a starving 8-year-old kid when there's no food or drink around to satiate his hunger and thirst. For Dano, it probably was a matter of life and death! We had no choice but to turn around and head back to Garrison. By this time, twilight began settling in around us, causing us to feel more anxious about whether there'd be any place open for business. As we rumbled into the ghosty town of Garrison and searched up and down the entire strip, we found one, and only one, place open. It was an old run-down gas station with a pitiful selection of food items available. It wasn't what we expected but by then we were grateful to have anything to eat! We purchased wrapped subs from the cooler. They weren't the greatest in the world but if the humblest of these crumbs could ease our son's gnawing pain and restore his hope and vitality, then that was really all that mattered. And not once did we complain about our hard-crusted and soggy sandwiches. Chapter 42 Misty Sakakawea Lake Today was an overcast Sunday, August 20, 2000. We rolled out of Fort Stevenson State Park located on the northern shore of Sakakawea Lake and drove two hours toward Garrison Dam which was located on the southern shore of this great reservoir lake. All of a sudden, Dano expressed an urgent desire for a rest area. Fortunately, we were not too far from Sakakawea Lake State Park. We drove right in and found the outhouses to be very clean. After our personal business had been taken care of, we walked along the grassy shoreline of Lake Sakakawea. We were struck by the beauty of the lake and sky which was partially shrouded in a misty veil. The sky was a swirling mass of clouds in varying shades of grey. The wind-swept choppy lake mirrored the same turbulent shades. Through the mystic fog which hung low over the lake, majestic red bluffs faded in and out as the fog passed quickly over its face. It was as if the lake and the sky were one and having a moody and introspective day. The foggy mood of this melodramatic lake seemed to permeate everything it touched, and as it did so, it also seemed to touch us at the same time. Somehow, its wondrous and harmonious flow of calmness permeated our souls. It seemed as if all the spirits who had ever passed this way were there to comfort and to guide us onto the right path. I hadn't realized that the road right here at the lake was actually part of the retaining wall of Garrison Dam which is located between Riverdale and Pick City in North Dakota. Chapter 43 Garrison Dam From Sakakawea Lake State Park, we crossed the road to see what was on the other side. What I saw took my breath away. The view of the Missouri River Valley opened up before us and fell far, far away, swooping down below us and beyond to unseen lands. Even though we stood in the mist, it was as if we were in the clouds moving across the land. In the far distance the Missouri River became a silvery ribbon until it too faded out. I had never seen such a spectacular and misty-dreamy view in my entire life nor will I ever see or feel one like this anytime in the near future. Compared to the Hoover Dam in a hot, dry and barren mountainous canyon bordering Arizona and Nevada, the Garrison Dam was like a breath of fresh air. The river valley was green and fertile, its black soil deep and rich, its land contours gently sloping away endlessly until it too disappeared from view. As I stood there, my spirit wanted to drop off the ledge of the dam and soar down into the wide valley below. If only I could have spread my wings like a glorious eagle and followed the coursing river to its culminating end! Unless one has been to the Garrison Dam, it's hard to fathom the depth, height, and beauty of something so magnificent as this dam, in comparison to the river valley that sprawled outward to the horizon. Technically, the Missouri River and the Mississippi River are one and the same and, therefore, the longest river system in the world which adds much to the great strength of our nation. Chapter 44 Sacagawea After we had left the area near Sakakawea Lake and Garrison Dam, Dano suddenly had another urgent request for a restroom stop. Now, when you're in remote places like North Dakota, finding restrooms just doesn't come easy! But we did manage to find a gas station with a bait and tackle shop that allowed Dano to use their private bathroom. So that was good! We drove on and once again, Dano needed to go. It was just going to be that kind of a day! I had a sneaking suspicion that maybe Dano should cut back on his Powerade drinks, especially when restrooms were too few and far in between! We made our way slowly but surely toward the Knife River Indian Historical Village. This is where Sacagawea, a Shoshone by birth, grew up after being kidnapped by the Hidatsas who carried her along with other hostage children from Montana to a small indian settlement in North Dakota near the confluence of the Knife and the Missouri Rivers. While Sacagawea is better known by her Shoshone name which means "Boat Launcher," North Dakotans prefer to call her "Sakakawea" which is Hidatsa for "Bird Woman.? This may have been a reference to her being small and skinny as a child and perhaps also as a woman. Considering how instrumental Sacagawea was to the success of the Lewis & Clark mission, I thought how astute her Shoshone parents had been when they chose her name. After all, this historic expedition had been launched by boat! If not for our brave Sacagawea who accompanied the Lewis & Clark expedition, they may have very well been doomed from the start. The Corps of Discovery would have encountered hostile indian territories along the way and been caught unprepared to cross the Rocky Mountains as winter approached. She proved to be a valuable member as she led the Lewis & Clark team to the area known as the Great Falls in Montana. The falls triggered a long-lost childhood memory in her as she began to recognize that she had been here before. Her own people, the Shoshones, had often passed through here, most likely during their migrations to and from different camps at different times of the year. Her joyful discovery and excitement at finding herself here could not be contained! Through excellent scouting efforts, her people were located and she was joyfully reunited with her brother who had since become the chief of their tribe. Her brother was angry with her at first because she had brought the white man who was a threat to their way of life. However, she was able to convince him that they were friends on a peaceful mission and would need horses to cross the Rocky Mountains before winter storms set in. Her brother finally relented and agreed to provide them with horses. This was crucial to the success of their mission and was ultimately responsible for the westward expansion of America when thousands of pioneers poured into the Northwest Territory of Oregon. There's much more to tell and it's such a fascinating subject. If readers would like to learn more about Sacagawea and the Lewis & Clark expedition, there are plenty of resources available. [To be continued next week.] Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.2 ===== THE HEARING-EAR DOG 11 Kendra Harness [Comic] To view the comic, click on the link above. For those who are Braille readers, a text description is provided below. Not by Popular Demand! "The Hearing Ear Dog" War is Heck. Puffy and Killer have decided to set aside their differences for the moment . . . "Forward march!" The duo thinks as they press onward. To save poor Melvin, who could be in very big trouble . . . Let's check on that hypothesis . . . The mice rally. "We're mad as hell and we aren't gonna take it anymore!" "Yeah!" They shake their fists. A mob of angry mice chase the chief mouse as Melvin gums a mouse in the background. The chief mouse's Mouseketeer ears falls off as he runs. The chief mouse has regrets. "I must have been too lenient with the recruits . . ." Shortly after desposing the leader . . . The mice throw Melvin back at Puffy and Killer. "Here he is! You can have him back! Just keep the brat away from us -- please!" As the smoke clears . . . Puffy and Killer are crushed by Melvin. The grave of the former mouse leader is in the background. Puffy turns to Killer. "That was easy, but do you know the name of a good chiropractor?" WHAT NOW? War? Peace? Or just plain old detente? Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.3 ===== Knowing Mary J. Thornley Words: 534 [Film Review] At the outset, I didn't know about the hearing aid. There was nothing about it in the summary or the synopsis online. I selected the DVD at random. The cover was lurid and attractive, and the blurb promised an apocalyptic thrill. Aliens plus a father-son combo. The lead role was played by Nicholas Cage, whose face looks anxious all the time anyway. The father teaches, brilliantly (as always happens in movies), a class in which he lectures on solar flares. He falls into a worried-looking reverie and dismisses the class. When his little boy makes his appearance, we are not long in discovering the boy's hearing aid. The aliens seem to be contacting the kid via this device. We see the boy taking it off, examining it, and then, on a zoo outing, the father-son duo fall in with a mother-daughter pair. When the two children are looking at a wolf exhibit, the camera zeroes in on the boy's hearing aid which the little girl has just noticed. She says to the boy, "Wolves are born deaf." Meanwhile the father and mother are talking. The father says the boy isn't deaf; he wears the hearing aid because--well, it's not clear just why the boy wears it. The explanation the father offers is vague and meaningless. The boy doesn't pay attention, or his hearing seems to switch off and on, so he wears the hearing aid. The father says the boy is an "expert" at sign language. We are soon treated to the boy's skills: the father and son do a stiff, laborious signed rendition of you-me-together-continue (you and me together forever, they mouth). The reason for their doing this exercise isn't easily decipherable. Meanwhile, the father has figured out that a page covered in numbers that was found in a time capsule is a compilation of times, dates and locations for all sorts of minor and major disasters resulting in loss of human life that have already taken place. Only a few remain. The father concludes these are a countdown to apocalypse. He feeds data into a computer and sees a solar flare is due to occur. It's vast, shooting out a lick of flame that toasts the globe. The boy, meanwhile, becomes insufferably knowing. Maybe this is where the title comes in. In the end, of course, with a highly dramatic flourish, the boy and the girl are spirited off in the nick of time by the aliens to another planet which, presumably, they will grow up to repopulate. There is an emotional leave-taking: the father and son do that clumsy, unconvincing, signing bit again (although the father and son obviously are not going to be together "forever"). The father is left behind, and next we see the children gamboling out-of-doors in tall, wavy futuristic grass. Close to dramatic music. I wondered why the producers had inserted the poor signing and the hearing-aid-that-was-not-a?hearing-aid into the plot. Maybe they had wanted to make a bow to "disability" yet they could not have used a deaf child as the selected progenitor of humanity. And maybe they wanted to tap into the cachet of signing. Voila! A new kind of deaf person is born. Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.4 ===== Vignettes of the Deaf Character Edith Sayers Lines: 1,530 [Book Review] Book under review: VIGNETTES OF THE DEAF CHARACTER AND OTHER PLAYS Willy Conley Gallaudet University Press, $60 http://www.clercscar.com/books/vig.html Like many Deaf people, I have often felt that going to see a sign-language play, such as those of the National Theater of the Deaf (NTD), NTID's old Sunshine Too, or many produced by the Gallaudet Theater Department, was more a chore than a pleasure. Typically, actors begin to sign their lines before you are looking, they fingerspell far too much, and the lighting, stage sets, and the movement of characters around the stage almost always interfere with your view of the dialogue. For many years, I thought that my difficulties with sign-language plays were caused by the physical dimensions of the typical large theater, where the audience is so far away from the actors that many elements of ASL, such as indications of turn-taking, are impossible to see. For me, mainstream plays with sign-language interpreting are easier to follow because of preferential seating right in front of the interpreters. But then, in 1999, I saw RATHSKELLAR in a large theater on the Gallaudet campus and was blown away. RATHSKELLAR, a full-length play framing short pieces performed by an ensemble cast, communally composed by Gallaudet students, and produced without institutional sponsorship, was real Deaf theater, fully accessible to an audience of "people of the eye." It didn't matter if you were seated in the back rows, because a real Deaf play is intrinsically designed for a real Deaf audience. But what exactly is a Deaf play? Is it always a collection of various short pieces, like RATHSKELLAR? According to Aaron Weir Kelstone, in his Foreword to Willy Conley's collected plays, VIGNETTES OF THE DEAF CHARACTER AND OTHER PLAYS, Deaf theater has its roots in the literary societies of residential schools in the 1800s, where a unique Deaf format developed: small-scale amateur productions were produced by community members taking turns on stage and rotating back into the virtually all-Deaf audience. While the shorter formats of these literary-night productions were doubtless essential in terms of historical development, I think that the abiding essence of Deaf theater lies in its communal spirit and its absolute dependence on appeal to the eye. As Kelstone further explains, early Deaf theater began to give way to sign-language theater in the 1930s, as hearing teachers introduced scripted plays from the hearing theater world that then had to be translated by the actors (often without other adaptations). Now that an English-language script was the basis for the play and voice interpreting was easy to add, the art form could be brought to a wider public. All of which culminated in 1967 in the founding of the NTD, where Deaf actors work with hearing actors to act out (mostly) hearing plays in ASL translation for a largely hearing public. NTD has done wonderful things for the Deaf community by exposing the general public to ASL and to talented Deaf people, including Willy Conley himself, who was a member of NTD's troupe in the 1980s, but Deaf theater it is not. No wonder so many of us in the audience are either profoundly irritated or fast asleep in our seats! Where is Deaf theater in the current era of the sign-language play? Because the heart of a Deaf theater experience is a live performance by amateur actors known to the audience as friends and acquaintances, it is not happening outside of sizeable Deaf communities or national gatherings. Yes, Deaf plays seem to be thriving on YouTube, and this may keep the form alive, at least for the people who are creating and acting in the plays, but the LCD monitor is not going to nurture the communal spirit that is essential to Deaf theater. The sad fact is that, despite the wonderful state of recording technology today, process few Deaf plays, composed to be performed in a Deaf-community environment, have been recorded. And what is recorded is more often left in private hands, unavailable for purchase, loan, or classroom use. What happened, for example, to the recordings of the plays performed at Deaf Way II? This is a very long introduction to a review of Willy Conley's recently published collection of plays, but, for me, understanding what Deaf theater is and why we see so little of it, and record less, is essential to why this book is important. Regardless of the type of play--and Conley's work does include many full-length plays that are more typical of the hearing world than the Deaf--he evidently composes, or crafts, all of his plays visually, so that the English-language scripts look like parallel developments, not the starting points of the plays. And because Conley is equally fluent in ASL and English (he has a master's degree in creative writing, for which he studied with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, and taught for a time in the Gallaudet English Department), his English-language scripts are remarkably competent in conveying what a production is like. The one play of Willy's that I have taught frequently is "The Hearing Test," because for many years it was the only one available in an anthology that students could buy for the class (Jepson's NO WALLS OF STONE). I don't think any of my students had ever seen a production of this play, and yet, with only the English-language script, they were able to plan, rehearse, and act out short scenes that were true to the intent of the play as I have seen it performed and that were not only accessible but also engaging to audiences accessing the production by sight alone. I can't wait to get started on my spring semester Deaf Lit, where VIGNETTES will be a required textbook and we'll have access to virtually all of Willy's plays. My all-time favorite Conley play, "Goya: En la Quinta del Sordo," co-written with Iosef Schneiderman, is regrettably not included in this anthology because it has no English script. (One wonders why Gallaudet University Press could not have included a DVD of at least this one masterpiece of Deaf theater.) The other Conley plays I like best are those in which ordinary Deaf people work through universal family issues: in addition to "The Hearing Test," these plays are "Broken Spokes," "The Fallout Shelter," and the remarkable, gut-wrenching "The water falls." These are plays that enact stories: they have beginnings, middles, and ends, complications, crises, and resolutions, and they are, at first glance, not much different in structure from the sign-language plays that meet the expectations of hearing audiences. Yet they are inarguably Deaf theater. They are visual: the climax of "Broken Spokes," for example, is presented in sign-mime, while the horrifying back story in "The water falls." is given in gruesome ASL puns. What's more, Willy's characters think and act like real Deaf people, not like, as in sign-language plays, hearing people who respond to comments made behind their backs but for some unexplained reason are compelled to deliver their lines in ASL! Other plays in this collection are much closer in form to historically authentic Deaf theater. Rather than enact a long story about a Deaf person, they are collections of short pieces such as were performed in 19th-century Deaf literary societies. These plays, "Vignettes of the Deaf Character," now in rehearsal at NTID, and "Falling on Hearing Eyes," performed at Deaf Way II, can be seen as revivals of the literary-night form, much like RATHSKELLAR. Still other plays are radical departures from anything I, for one, have seen. For example, "The Expression of a Black and White Man" is a dramatic monologue on a serious theme. Dramatic monologues are not common in Deaf theater, but the few I have seen have been comic, usually broadly comic--think Bob Daniels. I would love to attend a performance of "The Expression" to see exactly how a Deaf actor would carry off an ASL monologue revealing that he is not only a complete idiot, but also, without his ever being aware of it, a loathsome bigot. The appearance of this collection of Willy Conley's plays is good news for Deaf playwrights, Deaf theater, and the Deaf community. Its publication also suggests that we all need to make a greater effort--a true effort--to support Deaf theater. Are you involved? Has your circle of friends, club, or church staged a play recently? What about your local deaf school, which probably could use your help? Or your state Association of the Deaf? Do you support the efforts of those groups who do produce plays by buying tickets? Amateur productions may be run by volunteers, but theaters must be rented and advertising paid for. If you are a teacher, what have you done to encourage the recording of productions of Deaf plays and making them available for classroom use? Does your course introduce students to Deaf theater and support Deaf playwrights? If you are a writer, are you keeping your work in your filing system waiting for copyright protection and royalties, or are you offering your work for local productions that will build an audience for what you write? Or allowing the publication of parts of your plays, without compensation, so that amateur groups looking for a script know what you can do? Don't be bashful. We Deaf never have been. Kathi Wolfe is a hearing and legally blind writer and poet. Her chapbook of poems is Helen Keller Takes the Stage, which is available at http://www.puddinghouse.com. Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.5 ===== The Earthworm Leslie Paul Peterson Words: 203 [Parable] I will write this according to what did I think about the earthworm. What a stress! I think about the paper works. Bills, forms, must signature many times to get service for my deaf-blind needs. But no paper works is Braille. I HATE paper works. I feel like I want to put my head down under the ground for a while. I mean I am seeking to astray from the stress hours. I saw an earthworm there. I gave my greeting to it. I ask it what up? The earthworm says, "What a stress!" I am puzzled and ask it what do you mean? The earthworm says, "I always dive through the soil all times. I like the soil but I HATE the rocks, roots, bad garbage, birds, fishmen, and dry. I have to cope with them in the different ways. "My favorite that I could go above the ground among the plants during the night hours where I can move so easy and fast. I could feel release from the pressure. But I force myself dive under the ground when the sun comes up." Now I understand that everyone has the stresses daily. But we have the release too in different ways. Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.6 ===== Why Hearing Parents Don't Sign John Lee Clark Words: 1,083 [Essay] One of the strangest facts related to the signing community is that most hearing parents of deaf children do not sign. It has been said that ninety-eight percent of hearing parents never learn American Sign Language. Why aren't more of them willing to learn sign language? I used to have complicated theories about this, but one day it dawned on me that the answer is so simple it's almost shocking. Most hearing parents don't sign because they don't want to communicate with their children. Think about it for a second. If they wanted to communicate, why, it would only be natural that they would sign. The problem has nothing to do with sign language itself, certainly not access to learning it or the challenge of mastering it. Millions of people all over the world flock to sign language classes. Non-deaf signers outnumber Deaf signers. In the United States, American Sign Language is second only to Spanish in its popularity as a "foreign" language. You would think that parents have even more reason, no, the BEST reason, to learn sign language. Instead, it is one of the hardest, rarest things in the world for a parent to do. Why is that? Most parents are conditioned, from their birth up, for the simple reason they were parented first before they became parents themselves, to engage in a power and control relationship with their children. This is taken so much for granted in our society that very few people are aware that children make up the most oppressed and abused population. True, children start out in life as small and weak beings, making them vulnerable to, even magnets for, all sorts of mistreatment, but that doesn't make them any less of human or less deserving of respect as human beings. Unfortunately, the Victorian view of children--"Children should be seen and not heard"--still permeates modern mainstream parenting culture. The biggest sickness in a relationship involving power and control is the absence of true communication. There may be a great deal of talk passing between parents and children, but a careful study will reveal that very little of it is real communication. Because of their misguided belief that they must control their children through the manipulations of power, parents do not want communication to occur. They would find it immediately threatening. This results in their often saying things like "Don't you dare talk back to me!" or "Because I said so!" If there is true communication, it immediately elevates children's status, forcing adults to recognize them not as objects or second-class beings but as individuals with totally valid needs and desires that are just as important as their own. Few parents are prepared for such an egalitarian relationship with their children. The power dynamics involved explain why fathers, in traditional hierachial households, are less likely than mothers to learn sign language, and why the few signs they do know are non-negotiable signs of authority: NO, STOP, BED NOW. It also explains why hearing siblings, who are more or less equal to their deaf siblings, are the family members most likely to sign. It's no accident that most of the parents who do sign are "different" from the mainstream mold?-open-minded, eccentric, radical. They may not always realize this, but often they are not only embracing sign language, bilingualism, or the cultural perspective of deafness, but an alternative style of parenting that lessens or removes the "versus" in their relationships, replacing it with, well, "with." Interestingly, the oral deaf community has the same problem. Despite their children's skills in lipreading, most parents are unwilling to accommodate their needs in this area. They still say "Never mind" or "I'll tell you later." But there are a few oralist parents who take care to look at their children before speaking, pause between turns, gamely repeat themselves, and take pains to include their deaf children in the family. I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of such sensitive oralist parents is comparable to the percentage of parents who do sign with their deaf signing children. But this is not a manualist versus oralist issue. This isn't even a problem unique to deafness. It's a much deeper concern having to do with parenting, power and control, and what it means to truly communicate. Another interesting phenomenon is that some non-signing parents do learn how to sign . . . later, often too late. There are many stories telling of how a parent got a new Deaf co-worker at the office, or comes into contact with Deaf people at church. All of a sudden, the parent is eager to learn sign language. Why NOW, after five, ten, fifteen, twenty years of living with their own flesh and blood? Simple: the new relationships with these Deaf adults are not stuck in the quagmire of power and control. Other stories tell of hearing parents' hands magically coming to life when they find themselves to be new grandparents of their deaf children's deaf children. This happened in my family. My grandfather never signed much to his deaf daughter until the day he learned his grandson was deaf. Again, the key here is power: The traditional grandparent-grandchild relationship is thankfully much less wrapped up in control than the traditional parent-child relationship. That the medical perspective of deafness is relentlessly presented to parents doesn't help. The idea that deaf children are impaired, in need of treatment and rehabilitation, only discourages parents from regarding their children as individual human beings worthy of equal respect and true communication. So the battle against audism shouldn't stop with changing parents' attitudes toward deafness, but should address the very nature of the growing people we call children. Why? Because parents can, and do, learn sign language only to exercise power and control over their deaf children in different but equally abusive ways. Within the signing community, even Deaf parents need to understand what true communication with their children requires. Otherwise, they wouldn't be much better than all those hearing parents who do not sign. The question to ask hearing parents, then, is "Do you want to communicate with your children?" If their answer is yes, there are no excuses for not learning sign language. No excuses. If their answer is no, their crime goes beyond merely neglecting to sign. Their crime is perpetuating the oppression and abuse of children, passing on the power and control cycle to the next generation, and the next, and who knows when it will finally be broken? Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.7 ===== Plugged In Pete McEachen [Comic] http://www.clercscar.com/index.php?id=53 To view the comic, click on the link above. For those who are Braille readers, a text description is provided below. Vinton, perched on the bed, asks Thomas, "Enjoy your dinner?" Thomas angrily shuts his dresser drawer. "Another meal, another reprimand." "You only do it to yourself, you know . . ." Thomas holds up his pajamas. "Mom wants me to speak up, but every time I do . . . she tells me to be quiet." Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.8 ===== It's October Again Angela C. Orlando Words: 1,399 [Memoir] It's October again. I used to love October. Autumn is such a beautiful time. I remember the colors. I love the smell of the leaves and the crisp Fall air. I can still hear the crunch of leaves under my feet as I walk down the sidewalk. Children play football and jump in piles of leaves. Yards are filled with fun and scary Halloween decorations. Between Fall Festivals and Halloween events, there's so much to do in October. It's a great month. But not anymore. I try to focus on everything that is special about October. I want to enjoy this time. In the end, it all feels so fake. I'm overcome with sorrow. It's the memories of Charles that hurt so much. October was always his month. My brother was born in October. He was almost a Halloween baby. We always had pumpkin pie on his birthday. I bought him Halloween decorations as a birthday present because he got a kick out of it. He had a good sense of humor. Charles would be 41 this year. If only he had lived. The dead don't age. I have to remind myself that Charles never even made it to 39. There was some sort of symmetry to Charles's life. He was born in October. He also died in October. I will never forget that day. It was a Friday. My parents and Daniel were out of the house for the evening. I was home alone when someone came to the door. I could hear the dog barking and knew someone was there. I don't answer the door when I'm alone. I figured it was just one of Daniel's friends, anyway. My family returned and we had pizza for dinner. It was a typical Friday. Daniel was on my lap while we sat in the living room. We were being very silly. We both laughed as we goofed around. Someone came to the door again. My parents went outside. I didn't think anything of it. Daniel told me there was a police car outside. I joked that maybe they were here to arrest him. He giggled. A few minutes later, my mother came inside. "Bad news," she told me. Again, I wasn't concerned. She always says "Bad news" and then tells me something that isn't really important. "Bad news. We are out of bread." "Bad news. Dinner will be late." Whatever. This time was different. "Charles is dead," she said. I just sat there in utter disbelief. The words made no sense. Finally I asked a stupid question. "Charles who?" She repeated: "Charles is dead." I knew she meant my brother. I didn't know what to do or say. One second I was laughing with my son. The next moment, I'm being told that my older brother is dead. I had no clue what to do. I said the only thing I could think of. "I'm so sorry." My poor mother. Charles was her baby just as Daniel is mine. Things like this aren't supposed to happen. My mother went back outside to talk to the police. I had to tell my six-year-old son that his favorite uncle was dead. I took him up to bed and lay down with him as he sobbed in my arms. When Daniel was finally asleep, I went to my mother to find out what had happened. Her hands shook uncontrollably as she tried to sign to me. Inwardly, I begged her to say something other than what I knew she would tell me. It had to be an accident. Maybe he was hit by a car, I told myself. Even being the victim of some kind of crime would have been better. At least then I could blame the criminal. No. None of that was true. Charles had committed suicide. While his fiancee was at work, he took an overdose of medication and died. He did it to himself. The worst part for me is the idea that he died all alone. I can only imagine the mental state he was in at the time. The pain and hopelessness. The shame and disgrace. No one should have to die like that. The next few days were horrible as we tried to cope with our grief. My mother didn't leave her bedroom. None of us wanted to eat. But we tried to keep things as normal as possible for Daniel's sake. He needed to know that life goes on. Was it cruel fate or a sad coincidence that Charles was buried on his birthday? In some ways, it made things easier. We dealt with the pain of his funeral and birthday at the same time. I will never know how my mother got through the day. Thirty-nine years before, she brought a baby into the world. And then, on that very same date in October, she laid him to rest. This was one time when I felt thankful to be blind. I couldn't see what was going on. My mother described the urn and Fall flowers to me. But I didn't see any of it because I didn't want to. I refused to touch the urn. As long as I didn't touch it, I would never have to see my brother as nothing but harsh metal and wood. In my mind, he's still very much the flesh and blood I always knew. Touching that urn would have ruined the image of my brother as a living person. Maybe I'm just fooling myself. I don't care. We all do what we need to in order to cope. Charles was buried in our local cemetery. My parents bought a plot that will hold six urns. That way we can always be together. I never imagined that Charles would be the first of our family to be buried in that plot. We said goodbye. It rained for an entire week. It was as if all of Heaven wept with us. Life went on despite our pain. We took comfort in knowing that Charles had finally found peace. We focused on Daniel and the joys of childhood. After a few weeks, my mother came down to dinner again. Each day passed so slowly but we found our way through. That was two years ago this month. It's hard to believe that I exist in a world without my big brother. Then again, he is still with us because he's always in our hearts and thoughts. I miss Charles. I still love Charles. That will never change. So it's October again. I try to enjoy the month, but I'm overcome with sadness. October is Charles's month. He was born and died in October. The leaves, the colors, and the smell of the Fall air . . it all makes me think of Charles. I recently read a script for the television show "One Tree Hill." In the episode, a character was performing a song she supposedly wrote. I don't even know if it's a real song. It touched my heart deeply and made me think of Charles. The emotions. The pain. The sorrow. I dedicate this song to my brother. It's October again Leaves are coming down One more year's come and gone And nothing's changed at all Wasn't I Supposed to be someone To face the things that I've been running from Let me feel I don't care if I break down Let me fall Even if I hit the ground And if I Cry a little Die a little At least I know I lived Just a little I've become much too good At being vincible I'm an expert I play it safe and keep it cool But I swear This isn't who I'm meant to be I refuse to let my life rule over me Let me feel I don't care if I break down Let me fall Even if I hit the ground And if I Cry a little Die a little At least I know I lived I wanna be somebody Who can face the things that I've been running from Let me feel I don't care if I break down Let me fall Even if I hit the ground And if I Cry a little Die a little At least I know I lived It's October again Leaves are coming down One more year's come round and gone And nothing's changed at all Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15.9 ===== I Never Slept with Helen Keller Raymond Luczak Lines: 259 [Excerpt] In Raymond Luczak's new play I NEVER SLEPT WITH HELEN KELLER, the statue of Helen Keller wakes up and confronts her creator. Here is some of what the statue tells her in the play: "Posing is boring. It wears me out. No one pays attention to me after a minute or two. Most people spend very little time with statues. That's why statues hate paintings so much. These visitors stand in front of those paintings for hours, and no one pays attention to us. We are definitely there to be touched, to be held, and to be breathed into life. . . . We [deafblind people] are like statues. The world just wants us to sit there and look beatific like saints in a chapel. Somehow our lost abilities to see and hear have enabled us to get into heaven a lot sooner before everyone else. One day, when we've died, we will all rise up and see the angels fluttering wings all over the clouds and hear them sing the most glorious songs. Helen wanted more than anything to *speak*. She wanted so much to be a hearing person that she didn't even want to learn sign language. She only fingerspelled because that was not so bad as signing. How do you think that makes us feel? She made it clear that we all should strive to be hearing and sighted, which is just impossible for many of us." Back to Top ==================================================================================== Clerc Scar 15 FEEDBACK FRIDAY ===== Dear Editors: Re: "Why Hearing Parents Don't Sign" by John Lee Clark I am the only deaf person in my family. All my relatives are hearing. My parents are hearing. Honestly, I still identify myself as hearing culture. That might effect my views on this subject. It seems that in the Deaf community, hearing parents are often made out to be the root of all evil. They do everything wrong. They won't sign. They force their children to speak and wear hearing aids. They don't want to communicate with their deaf children. They don't love their deaf children. Does anyone really believe that's true? I know that people who are culturally Deaf do not view deafness as a disability. That's fine. But most of the world does. It's just the way it is. Deafness is a disability just like blindness, physical impairments and mental challenges. Of course hearing parents are upset to learn their child is deaf. No one wants their child to be disabled. It's not that we won't love a child who has a disabilities. Parents always want the best for their children. Life with a disability is hard. So it saddens them to find out their baby can't hear. Hearing parents don't know what to do. They are only human. They may have absolutely no prior contact or experience with people who are deaf. They are confused, scared and vulnerable. They may also be under the influence of well meaning but misguided professionals. We all know about the oralist attitude. Parents are told not to learn sign. Not to let their children sign. Make the child speak. They think the professional is right because he's a doctor or she's a speech pathologist or audiologist. Obviously, the professional knows better than the parents. So they do what they are told to do. The child grows up and suddenly we find out that wasn't the right thing to do. It hurt the child. It made life harder for him. Why did the parents do that? Didn't the parents understand? No, I don't think they did. I don't think most hearing parents understand the issues faced by a child who is deaf and the implications of not signing. Let's give them a break, okay? Of course they love their children. They want to communicate. they just don't know how. They don't understand. Instead of condemning hearing parents, we should work on awareness and education. Let's teach them what they really need to know. Let's help them understand the heart of the issue. Maybe then they will acknowledge and accept the need for sign language. I think it's worth a try. Angela C. Orlando ===== Re: "Why Hearing Parents Don't Sign" by John Lee Clark As a hearing parent, I agree with your last paragraph. Can you imagine what would happen if law enforcement found a hearing family that denied their hearing children of communiation? It would be considered abuse and neglect. We really have to start holding hearing parents of Deaf children accountable. But we also have to hold those who misinform or mislead parents accountable. Too many parents today are being told to sign will impede speech. Another issue is that hearing parents who choose to sign have to wade through SEE and manually coded sign systems before they find out what ASL is all about. Then the last issue is that early intervention is plagued with hearing service providers who don't know anything about sign except basic basic signs. They know very little about providing language through ASL. They are terrible role models for parents. Hearing parents of Deaf children need Deaf experts/professionals in these positions. This is where we have to push EHDI and state EI programs harder. Tami Hossler ===== Re: "Why Hearing Parents Don't Sign" by John Lee Clark I am very lucky my parents learned to sign. Thank God my mother went to class on how to raise kids--the thing that struck my Mom the most was to treat your child the way you want to be treated. Simple as that. Also, a teacher told my Mom, "It's OK to use gestures/mime to Anna now, but what will you do when she becomes a teenager?" That did it for them. Anna Virnig ===== Re: "Why Hearing Parents Don't Sign" by John Lee Clark This article was very interesting to me. I work at a school for the deaf and lead visitors around campus. I tell them the numbers I have seen from Gallaudet's research: less than 20% of hearing parents of deaf children sign fluently (and I'm sure it is lower than 20% because this would includes the people who say they sign because they have knowledge of a few signs like SHOES, COAT, EAT, etc.).. My husband and I (both hearing) adopted two deaf children. He was working at a different school for the deaf at that time and had already learned some signs, so I just started learning sign language and we both progressed through some sign classes. I know that we didn't go through the "grief process" that birth parents do, and didn't have audiologists, etc. telling us that oral was the way to go--but signing just seemed like "the thing to do" (and I had never been around a deaf person in my life). Although willing to take up a new language, we weren't perfect parents either. I remember very well sitting through a training by Indiana School for the Deaf's Bi-Bi group when my oldest child was in high school. I cried for two days when I learned that all deaf people announce that they are going to the bathroom, get a drink, etc., when they leave a room. We had teased our oldest about "Why are you telling us? Go ahead--you don't need to tell us" for maybe 8 years. So we didn't get ALL the cultural info we needed. I feel sure that it was easier for us to decide to learn to sign. I've talked with lots of birth parents and I do understand pretty much their feelings. Several years ago I read an article about people who thought they were going on a trip to Italy and, while on the plane, were told they were landing in Holland. It goes on to say that they thought they would be seeing Italian art, eating lasagna and cannoli, etc., but Holland has Rembrandt and tulips and is a very wonderful place itself--just not where they planned to go. I think I can dig through my stuff and find this article if you are interested. Paints a really good picture of a positive response to (surprise!) bearing a deaf child. Linda Beavert ===== Re: "Knowing" by Mary J. Thornley In response to Ms. Thornley's thoughts about the film KNOWING--I have been analyzing the literary functions of deaf characters in movies for some time now, and I believe I have an answer as to why this boy had to be deaf for the story line (no matter how poorly researched/justified/acted/realized the representation was!). I have identified several categories of deaf characters as they appear in films that are not overtly about deafness. This boy had to sign so that there would be a verbal exchange that would recur, or "echo" throughout the film for emotional effect. For instance, in JERRY MAGUIRE, do you remember the scene in the beginning when the two main hearing characters enter the elevator and an amorous deaf couple enters as well? The deaf man signs something, he kisses his girl, and then the elevator doors open and they exit. The two hearing folks are silent for a moment, and then the man says, "I sure wish I knew what he was saying." The woman says, "My favorite aunt was hearing impaired. He just said, 'You complete me'." Because these two characters at this moment in the film have just met, and are far from being emotionally close, the utterance of this phrase serves as both an articulation of their separate longings, and a foreshadowing of the relationship that they can and will have together. In the last few moments of the film, Jerry (Tom Cruise) is able to haltingly say these words to her himself. Their experiences have brought them full circle, and the phrase "You complete me"--now self-generated and expressed from his heart--indicates to the audience just how far these two have come on their journey together. I believe that "you-me-together, forever" is the same utilization of a sort of preemptive echo--and signing makes it more poignant (to whom? probably to a hearing audience with little or no awareness of deafness, deaf issues, deaf communication, etc.). Also, having a deaf son would help us know more about the father's character. It taps into whatever associations or schemas harbored by those uninitiated into the world of the deaf or deaf/hearing relationships. What does it mean to an uninformed audience when they see a father who has a deaf son? And that they sign together? Imagine the bond between them, imagine the hardships of raising a "disabled" child alone . . . How sweet that the only signing to which the audience is privy is a professing of their deep bond with each other! They don't sign when arguing, they don't sign about what kind of cereal he wants in the morning . . . Just this affirmation of their love and devotion. Sign is so beautiful and sweet, yada yada yada. You get my drift. I might be wrong about this, but that's my take on it. I have many examples of other categories with specific film clips to illustrate my points. It does seem like an ill-informed choice at this point in the awareness of deafness in this country, though. I really did think that Hollywood was further along. I guess that's what a good apocolyptic disaster will do to any writer/director--the more hankies out, the better--whatever way you can! Miriam Lerner Mary J. Thornley responds: I was fascinated by your observations and grateful that you took the time to share this with me. You did understand that the boy was NOT deaf, didn't you? This is why I was struck by this movie. The future father of humanity cannot be someone who is less than physically perfect, so the boy can't be deaf--and yet--the director manages to make the boy neither/nor. This is my argument. Miriam Lerner responds: I believe that the boy was supposed to be deaf and that the father was in deep denial about it. Having a close-up on a hearing aid means deafness, period. The father's lame explanations only prove no one knew how to write a credible script. As for the actor not being deaf, that isn't something I look at at all in my research; I just take it as an unfortunate given that the directors cast whomever they please and don't have a clue . . . or do have a clue but don't care. I'm looking at the story itself, not the irresponsibility of those making the film. That's legendary and, sadly, just the way it sometimes is . . . as hard as that is to swallow! ===== We welcome letters to the editor in response to this piece. Send to editor@clercscar.com. We reserve the right to edit letters for space and clarity or not to publish a letter. We are always open to submissions. Submit your writing, artwork, or video to editor@clercscar.com. To subscribe, email subscribe@clercscar.com with the message "Subscribe daily" or "Subscribe weekly." To unsubscribe, email subscribe@clercscar.com with the message "Unsubscribe me." Find us on Twitter and Facebook! Visit our archives or bookstore at http://www.clercscar.com. 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