Seeds of Disquiet: One Deaf Woman’s Experience

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- - - - 8 To give me a taste of what I'd be up against after high school, my parents persuaded Lock Haven State College to let me take an English class. Although I didn't know it, I was also helping to prove something. A college administrator had told my parents that there was no way I could make it through college. I enrolled for the class during the summer before my senior year in high school. By that time, I had my driver's license and occasional use of the family car. I found college to be much like high school. Oass was just as boring. The big difference was that the students were all people I'd never met before. Nobody seemed to take notes, so I watched the classroom interaction and copied the few things that were written on the blackboard. As usual, my major work was done after class. It was tolerable because the subject material was interesting and challenging. The class gave me my first deep exposure to the strange mind of Lewis Carroll and the poetry of T. S. Eliot. Because reading and writing had become my two favorite pastimes, I wanted to study either journalism or library science . There weren't many colleges in Pennsylvania that offered degrees in either field, but Pennsylvania State University had 46 Seeds of Disquiet both. I also applied to Lehigh University, but predictably was turned down because it was an all-male school. I knew my parents were concerned about my college choice. Penn State boasted a huge enrollment and large classes, meaning that my professors would be able to provide little or no attention to individual students. Mom and Dad hinted that I might be happier elsewhere and took me to visit a couple of smaller colleges. But ultimately they left the choice to me. They had long since learned that when my mind was set on something, the intelligent thing to do was to get out of my way. Mr. Z had gone to Penn State. He took me and my parents to meet with some professors. I never knew what they discussed , but by the time we left the campus, everyone seemed reassured that I would be all right there. An added attraction of going to Penn State was its football team. I had followed the exploits of Lydell Mitchell, Franco Harris, Mike Reid, and Steve Smear with great interest. Dad had gone to some of the Nittany Lions home games with friends, since the campus was only about an hour away. I was looking forward to being a student at Penn State because I would be eligible for a season ticket dirt cheap. I hadn't been away from my family since I became deaf, except for a few rare hospital stays and overnight visits with friends. Mom and Dad must have expected the college separation to be rough on me. The first day I was on campus, after they left, I walked over to find out where my mailbox would be. There were three letters in it-one from Mom, one from Gayle, and one from Dad. They'd been postmarked a day earlier in Woolrich. I was touched, but I was also too busy to be homesick. I had been dying to leave for college. For as long as I could remember , I had been an oddity-the only deaf child in Wool47 Seeds of Disquiet rich, in my high school, and anywhere I went. I wanted to wear a different label. The first day I hit Penn State, in June 1969, I knew that life was good. Walking to registration, I saw a woman with Ritz crackers hung on wires for earrings and an incredible, bushy red Afro. Seconds later, I noticed a man with clogs on his feet, beads in his hair, and clothes my family would disown me for. I was grinning by the time I had my classes lined up. On a campus with people this strange, I was going to seem mild by comparison. My roommate was a former high school beauty queen and a first-class ego killer. She was very conscious of how she looked, and so was everyone else, especially men. At first, I followed her around like a puppy, making her friends mine. But we didn't have much in common, so I found other friends. The study patterns I'd...