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Introduction
- Gallaudet University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Introduction SO WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO BE A HALF CENTURY? I watched over Lance's shoulder as the letters formed one at a time on our TTY screen. My brother was teasing my husband about his fiftieth birthday. Out in California, he talked into the phone, while aTTY relay operator transferred his voice into successive TTY beeps, and the printed version ofwhat he said was spelled out on our home TTY in Maryland. I couldn't quite make the letters out, and Lance turned and signed them to me before he typed back his answer. He didn't mind the teasing. My husband accepted being fifty better than I had. YOU SHOULD KNOW, he typed. Grady had had his fiftieth birthday several years before. I was nervous, afraid that Grady would say something about the party. Perhaps he hadn't noticed that the invitation specified it was a secret. Perhaps he had forgotten it. Perhaps he didn't think it was important. Now he was out in the hills of Ventura, talking blithely into the telephone, putting all my plans in jeopardy. I should have known better. Men, when they can talk at all, don't say very much, and Lance was too restless to sit long at the TTY anyway. After a few more pleasantries, he turned the conversation over to me. ix Introduction I eased into position and squinted at the screen. It was unusual to communicate on a TTY these days-we almost always used Email rather than the slow TTY, because despite discounts by states and phone companies, the TTY costs much more in long-distance charges. A quick hello would do. I could see the type clearly now, even read the little paper printout that recorded our conversation. HI BROTHER, I typed, adding GA, the old teletype language for "I' h d" t s your turn, go a ea . HI CATHERINE, he responded. The relay operator affiXed the GA for him. Catherine and Brother-just like when we were little kids. HOW ARE YOUR EYES? he asked. It was the first time he had mentioned my eyes. OKAY, I said. SURGERY WEDNESDAY THEN NO MORE CATARACT. I didn't want to explain more than that. For one thing, the lousy interpreter at the hospital had left Lance and me guessing what we were being told, and I wasn't sure of more than that. For another, I hated the details of it. Either the operation would work or it wouldn't. Even if it worked and the remorseless cloudiness that kept the brightest days dim disappeared and the new plastic lens admitted light like the natural lens ofmy youth, I was still out most ofmy peripheral vision. And I would continue to lose more ofit. And I would be blind. Sooner or later. That was just how it was. Grady didn't press me for details. At almost sixty, he had his own physical problems. We would show each other the respect of asking about and then gracefully ignoring each other's debilities. Conversation came a trifle awkwardly to us anyway. Growing up we weren't so close. Grady couldn't sign and I couldn't hear or speak. We had communicated through our little sister, Nana, whom we both loved. She could sign and speak-and she did both all the time. Nana was the one who told me most everything. She told me about Mama and she told me about Daddy, and she told me about Brother (whom I now try to call Grady) and the entire town of Rayne, Louisiana, where we all grew up. She told me about mysel£: x [34.229.50.161] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:42 GMT) Introduction too, how I was lucky to be deaf and go away to school, and not end up like her. The only person Nana didn't tell me about was herself But I wouldn't realize that until later. Rayne is in the heart ofwhat the Louisiana tourist bureau calls Acadiana, or Cajun country. Richard Leaky, anthropologist and South Mrican politician, defined culture as "the human adaptation," and the culture of Rayne and the surrounding bayou was deep Cajun. Instead of webbed feet or sharp eyes, I had my parents and Cajunness during my earliest years to keep me alive on the planet. Cajun is cool now, but when I was growing up, it was a culture disdained ; I didn't even see the word until I...