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12. Gallaudet: McDonald’s In Thailand
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12 allaudet: McDonald's In Thailand Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye softpipes, play on ... -JOHN KEATS, "ODE ON A GRECIAN URN" When it came time to leave home for college, Daddy and Irene took me to the bus station. I would take the bus to New Orleans, and in New Orleans catch the train for Washington, D.C. Nana, off I knew not where, didn't come. I was so excited, I was hardly even afraid. I hugged Daddy and even Irene and climbed aboard the bus. Once inside I made my way to the window. Poor Daddy. He was trying not to cry, and Irene was looking mighty disgusted with him. I could see her urging him to leave the station, but of course he paid no attention. He stood there with his red nose and threatening -to-fill eyes and waited for the bus to pull out. '1'1/ be okay, "I mouthed through the glass. It seemed like forever before the bus finally lurched forward and I was on my way. In New Orleans, I still felt more excited and curious than scared. I saw another deafperson following the conductor's exaggerated hand and mouth gestures. When he took a seat near my own, I was ecstatic. ''Are you going to Gallaudet?" I signed. 141 Orchid ofthe'Bayou He looked at me a moment quizzically. c: . . Gallaudet!" Amid a string of words that sprang from his lips, I caught only that one. Ora~ I thought, disheartened. He was deaf: like me, but he knew no sign language. So much for conversation. Communication was impossible, so we didn't bother to try. We sat next to each other in our totally separate worlds. He seemed like a nice enough person, a little weird, but nice. As I watched the swamps and farmland rush past, I thought about Daddy and Irene and Nana. I half laughed to myself thinking about my daddy's lecture. Before he dissolved into a puddle ofmush in the bus station, my daddy had been all strength and purpose. He stood in the doorway ofour home, slid my suitcase out to the stoop, pulled the door closed so the neighbors wouldn't see, and scratched the air with his finger. "You get pregnant," said Daddy, pausing to draw a big stomach on himselfwith his hand to make sure I understood, "you don't come home." I nodded. Pregnant was not what I planned to be. In Mississippi, two deaf brothers, graduates of the Mississippi School for the Deaf: boarded the train. They were also bound for Gallaudet. Through some kind of telepathy, we found each other. It took about three minutes. One was a prep, but the other had a whole year of college experience behind him. I was curious, but careful to restrain my questions. No sense in looking too eager. That most decidedly wouldn't be cool. In any case, I was thrilled to have someone to talk to. They were witty and friendly, and time began to roll as fast as the passing countryside. In Alabama and Georgia, more deaf students got on. By the time the train turned up the coast, there was a little group of us sitting together and excited to be going North. I don't know if Gallaudet administrators had arranged this gathering with our parents. Ron Nomeland, a former school administrator who came to Gallaudet from Minnesota, said the same phenomenon occurred on his train, bound to Gallaudet through Chicago. The oral boy sat alone among us, left out of the conviviality. Raised and educated without sign language, he moved his mouth 142 [18.217.228.35] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:03 GMT) qallaudet: McDonald's In Thailand like he was chewing a great big plug of tobacco that kept getting stuck against the roof of his mouth. It was downright ugly. It was unsuccessful, too. Hearing people drew away from him and stole glances from a distance. I felt intermittent sympathy for him. It probably wasn't his fault that he was oral. It's not anyone's fault how they get raised. There are some deaf people who take pride in the fact that they don't use sign language. They "don't need signs," they tell people. For these deafpeople, daily use ofspeech and lipreading is an important measure of their own success. "I don't use signs," the rationale goes, "therefore I must be...