I Fill This Small Space: The Writings of a Deaf Activist

Recreation and Entertainment: Yesterday—Today—Tomorrow

181 Recreation and Entertainment: Yesterday—Today—Tomorrow Some characteristics of people are so universally akin in that most of them seek recreation and entertainment after a steady diet of work. Due to communication factors the after-work outlets for the deaf are a little narrower yet more broad than a large segment of the hearing public would suspect. “Can the deaf swim?” asked a university student preparing her thesis. Whereupon the secretary-treasurer of the National Association of the Deaf penned an answer that should be a classic: “In order to swim I suppose we must paddle with our ears.” The deaf have an urge to identify themselves with hearing counterparts in habits of recreation and entertainment whenever possible but there is seldom any deviation from the ordinary. What makes the situation different is that the deaf would rather use more of these habits among themselves than with the hearing public. The reasons are easily apparent: among their own kind communication problems disappear and similar handicaps open up a fount of mutual understanding. It would be interesting to learn that the deaf of the older generation sought basically the same kinds of recreation in use today—hobbies, sports, civic meetings, social gatherings—with new kinds and greater variety added to each field making up the main differences. The do-it-yourself boom enlarged the hobby area. Coming increasingly into vogue have been golf and bowling and other departures from major sports. The trends in the civic meetings have been leaning more and more towards the national and the international, and together with a more liberal outlook on tobacco and alcohol at the social gatherings that would have shocked deaf grandmother have appeared such modern day innovations as charades and scrabble. The Silent Worker (October 1954) 182 So notable are the deaf for manual dexterity that they will be found building or renovating their own homes in leisure time, dissecting and then assembling their television sets and other electrical and mechanical devices, shaping model airplanes, trains, or cars, sometimes entering them in local or national contests. Their hobbies range from common place stamp-collecting to hazardous airplane flying and unusual buttoncollecting . There is even one deaf lady with interesting literature and materials on human hands. A glance through back issues of The Silent Worker will point out the variety and skill of the deaf in their number one recreation—sports. Almost every kind culminates in one tournament after another and the deaf who have attained public prominence are avidly followed. The American Athletic Association of the Deaf (A.A.A.D.), which is patterned along lines similar to the American Athletic Union (A.A.U.) is the great patron of amateur sports in the world of the deaf but unlike the A.A.U. and its great Olympic teams it could not send teams to the Olympics of the deaf held in Belgium last summer due to insufficient funds. Almost every state in America has a kind of association or society that safeguards the rights of the deaf and these organizations little by little are becoming affiliated with an organization on a national level, the National Association of the Deaf. In increasing numbers deaf individuals are joining this NAD, which is actually a non-profit organization founded for their benefit, and there is a growing awareness of the world Federation of the Deaf which recently held a convention in Rome, Italy, with representatives from several countries, including America. Not to be overlooked are two other societies, one the established National Fraternal Society for the deaf, an insurance body, by, of, and for the deaf with local branches in almost every large city and town in the United States and several branches in Canada, and the embryonic Order of Desoms, an offshoot of the Masons. The average deaf person finds a kind of recreation in the meetings of these societies as well as in the state and civic organizations because throughout them dual purposes run: business and pleasure. Benefit affairs have lately followed the time-honored traditions marking social gatherings—benefits for the home for the aged, for a clubhouse , or for trips for the basketball team. Card-playing from poker to pinochle, is ever popular at parties, but the highbrow set have introduced 183 chess and checker affairs and other games appealing to the intellect. Remaining the most popular social gathering of them...