"You'll shoot your eye out!"

The title comes from an iconic line uttered over and over to Ralphie's dismay in his indefatigable quest to acquire a Red Ryder BB gun in "A Christmas Story". The image of Ralphie was featured in one of Jewels' posts (in her now-defunct blog) last July, in which she talked about a time when a BB gun was used to playfully terrorize other people. It brought out a memory that I had forgotten about until now.

I was about 22 at the time when this happened. A bunch of us (all deaf) decided to go camping while it was cold out and we wanted to rough it. We agreed that we would use tents, digging tools, camping utensils, lanterns, non-perishable food, and matches. I thought it would be fun to bring along my pump-action BB gun.

Talk about being young and stupid.

After setting up the tents and a communal fire pit, we all went off in different directions to gather up the wood for the fire pit. One of us found a huge trunk and we recognized it as the perfect bench for us to huddle around the fire. It took all 4 of us just to move it. We could not carry it, despite us being young and full of spunk. LOL

After we got settled in, a friend asked me if he could borrow my BB gun. I gave the approval after telling him to go into the forest, keeping the gun away from us. The rest of us gathered around the fire for companionship and warmth.

We chatted for a long while and once in a while, something from the fire pit would suddenly jump out at us. We thought it was strange how the fire kept showering us with sparks. We kept moving further and further back from the fire until we were keeping the coldness out with our backs while barely keeping the warmth in with our fronts.

As the sun started to sink into the horizon, I got up to stoke the fire some more and I noticed something strange on one of the logs. The log seemed to have a strange round yellow spot on it. The spot seemed familiar, so I looked closer and...

Huh? BB pellet? What was it doing on a log? I shared my discovery with my friends and they were at first puzzled by that. We examined the other logs and found more BB pellets imbedded in them. That's when I cracked the mystery.

Have you figured it out yet?

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Our friend had climbed up a tree and shot a whole bunch of BB pellets into the fire. I chewed his ass out about that because we could have been seriously injured by a richocet or a flying spark. What if one of us got shot in the eye? He wasn't fazed by any of that, despite my anger and the rest of us jumping on him for his flagrant disregard for our health.

He was gone for over an hour and he said he had been shooting at the fire for about 20 minutes. He thought it was funny how we couldn't figure out why the fire kept shooting sparks at us. Made it easier for him to keep shooting since we were all deaf. He refused to apologize. What a jerk.

Never went camping with him again and I never brought my BB gun along again.

ADSL's questions, pt 5

And finally...A Daft Scots Lass asks, "Whats your most challenging part of being a daddy?"

That's an excellent question! This allows me to answer in many layers, such as early days, crawlng/exploring, safety issues, maintaining discipline, sibling rivalry, etc.

The early days - I worried constantly about the girls not breathing anymore. Yeah, I was aware of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and I was afraid that I would not be able to know when they were having problems. I never forgot one night when my younger daughter (about 8 months old) was in bed with us, sandwiched in for her safety. While sleeping, I started to become aware of the rocking motion sensation. I woke up and I freaked out when I saw why...my daughter's face was covered by our bed sheet and she was moving her head back and forth to try to breathe better. She was starting to suffocate and I woke up in time. I didn't sleep again that night.

Crawling/exploring/safety issues - I live in a two-story house, so the bane of my existence was the stairs. I've had near heart-attack moments from not being able to find them, only to discover they were UPSTAIRS. Incredible that they never had an accident on the stairs! Once they learned how to operate the doors, I had to post warning signs on the doors to remind the visitors to close and lock the doors behind them. I also worried that they inherited my intense nature of curiousity. Yes, I child-proofed the house, but... You know the saying, "Curiousity killed the cat"? Well, my girls are still alive. ;)

Maintaing discipline - this was made harder once the girls realized they could ask me for permission after being denied by their mother. How was I supposed to know she had said "No" already? I did try asking, "What did your mother say?" and they would lie, of course. Now, we tell each other what the decision was so they can't manipulate us...well, mostly me. ;) As for maintaining discipline, we make sure to be consistent and follow through with our warnings. They know we will warn them just once and second time will result in a time-out.

Sibling rivalry - I coined the term "Little Sibling Syndrome" after seeing a friend's youngest son constantly fight for his portions or rights or turns. I have noticed that he would go into the LSS mode even if he didn't have to fight for it at all. Since I don't want that in my younger daughter, I have repeatedly cautioned my older daughter about LSS. I have warned her that she must share things with her sister or include her in play...and guess what? Because my older daughter has exluded or refused to share with her sister, my younger daughter doesn't like to share out of fear that she will not get back whatever it was. Sighs.

Personality clashes - my older daughter is just like me, right down to the shape and look of the fingernails and how I walk. My younger daughter is just like her mother, willful and stubborn. Drives me CRAZY that I not only have to deal with the stubborn daughter, but the stubborn mother too. However, nothing frustrates me more than my "younger self"...she lets her fears spiral out of control. She's afraid of deep water/drowning and she has jumped into a spring (that is at least 30 feet deep) from a dock 10 feet high when I held her hand and jumped with her...and she has yet to jump from a 3 feet high diving board...at our public pool populated by lifeguards...solo.

Anyone else got questions for me? I would be happy to answer them.

ADSL's questions, pt 4

"Whats your most favourite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon?"

Usually, just relaxing and letting everyone be or watching football when in season. Nothing gets me going more than football. What I mean about letting everyone be, it's my day to let it all go and forget about the world.

Relax. Breathe. Focus on myself. Be re-centered. Feel calmer. Problems can wait.

My family understand and they actually like having a day to themselves as well. If the girls want to play with me, I will play with them. If I hide out in my bedroom and they come in anyway, they're welcome to stay in bed with me as long as they don't complain about what I am watching. :)

However, I went to Sign N Dine yesterday at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Just as relaxing because I got to chat with friends...and discuss what movies should be seen. I was very pleased to learn that I had converted someone to Coen Brothers' gangster masterpiece, "Miller's Crossing". Arguably, "Miller's Crossing" is the third greatest gangster flick after the first two Godfather movies.

Anyway, I digress. Sunday is the day I recharge and get ready to tackle the week anew. :)

ADSL's questions, pt 3

"Is there such a thing as a singles bar for sign languagers? If so, have you ever been to one and whats it like? Is everyone signing all over the place?"


Cute questions, indeed. :) What we like to do in order to have our own version of a singles' bar is we take over a section of a bar and chat away. The en masse of flying hands can be intimidating to waitresses and bar patrons.

There are three reasons for having our own singles' bar: 1) for deaf people to socialize, 2) for interpreting students (they're called that because they are studying sign language in hopes of becoming an interpreter) to help enhance their signing/comprehension skills, and 3) looking to get lucky.

Yes, I have been to one - that's how my wife and I started dating. ;)

ADSL's questions, pt 2

"Whats the most interesting conversation you have ever evesdropped on? Knowing that you lip read and not everyone being aware of it, have you ever come across and interesting situation that made you surprised or made you laugh? I'm sure you have some interesting stories to tell."

My lipreading skill is at best 50%. Depends greatly on how a person talks. It's more about being there at the right time.

The biggest surprise I had? When I was at a restaurant, I was seated facing a man across a glass partition and he was telling his buddies about his court case. He was facing charges of molesting his kids and he told his buddies he felt confident about beating the charges because he thought his own kids wouldn't testify against him. Imagine the looks of his buddies' faces when he said that...

The saddest? Watching a college student whine to her friends that, after getting a ticket from her parents to fly back home for Christmas, they wouldn't buy her another ticket for her to go see a friend of hers. She said something along the lines of "My parents bought me a ticket, why couldn't they buy me another? I want to see my friend. It's not fair!" Whine, whine, whine.

The funniest? I happened to look at a co-worker's direction just as she looked in my direction to make sure I wasn't "eavesdropping". She was 5 cubicles away (the low type where you can see others from a sitting position). I cocked my eyebrow and she immediately turned red and turned around to hide her embarassment. Other co-workers, who were talking with her, cracked up at her actions when they realized what had happened. What made it so funny? I didn't even catch a single word and one of the co-workers told me later on that the woman was talking about a guy who rocked her world in the bed last night. She was spilling all the juicy details and she THOUGHT that I "listened" in on her whole story. LOL

ADSL's questions, pt 1

A Daft Scots Lass left a comment in one of my posts last week, asking the following questions:

"Whats the most interesting conversation you have ever evesdropped on? Knowing that you lip read and not everyone being aware of it, have you ever come across and interesting situation that made you surprised or made you laugh? I'm sure you have some interesting stories to tell."

"Is there such a thing as a singles bar for sign languagers? If so, have you ever been to one and whats it like? Is everyone signing all over the place?"

"Do you prefer to sign with a fellow deaf person or do you prefer to lip read?"

"Whats your most favourite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon?"

"Whats your most challenging part of being a daddy?"

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Since ADSL's first two questions contain sub-questions, I'll answer them in "ADSL's questions, pt 2" (and pt 3) later on in the immediate future, I will answer question #3 which is "Do you prefer to sign with a fellow deaf person or do you prefer to lip read?"

Having attended my deaf school's reunion Saturday night, I got to experience both (signing with deaf people and lipreading each other) at once in one sitting. My deaf school emphasized strongly on oral education - signing was forbidden in the classrooms. We had to learn how to lipread the teachers. When we were done with our deaf school, we were ready for the world without ever acquiring any signing skill.

I had not seen some of my classmates for 30 years and it was rather disconcerting to me when I talked with some of them and seeing their eyes go blank when I tried to use sign language to help with the communication. One classmate was barely able to comprehend fingerspelling...and nothing else other than a sign here and there. Two of my classmates started conversing with each other, without any signing - just lipreading and gesturing.

I got bored with them after few minutes and I sought out others who could sign. I know it sounded bad...as if I was being a jerk or selfish. They were talking about NASCAR and driving/racing tactics. I have nothing against that, just not my cup of tea. I simply used that as my excuse to leave.

So it's obvious that I'd rather sign with a fellow deaf person than to lipread. Out of the 21 students in my graduating class, 14 attended the reunion (including me). Maybe half of that are at least competent in sign language communication. 30 years since graduation and only one could communicate with me in sign language fluently.

Story series - the only time I ever wet my pants at school

When Gillian from "A Daft Scots Lass" talked about what happened with her daughter at school (see the post about that), it triggered a memory in me.

This happened in my first year in a school where everyone was hearing. I went to a deaf school so a new school, filled with strangers who had little or no experience in dealing with a deaf person, was intimidating for me.

I had this teacher who would do double duty as a math teacher and a P.E. teacher. He and his wife, who also worked as a P.E. teacher, were extremely tough to deal with; even for a hearing student. How tough was he? I walked under a volleyball net to get to my assigned spot for the roll call and I was promptly punished with 5 laps around the gym for that infraction. Didn't matter to him that I was new to the school, let alone know I wasn't supposed to go under that.

While in his math class, I felt the need to go to the bathroom and I looked at the clock. Over half an hour left to go. Groans. I tried to hold it in until the class was over...when it was 20 minutes left to go, the wait was too much for me. I got up and walked over to his desk.

I remember seeing a student look at me wide-eyed as I walked by, as if he was questioning my action. I didn't think much of that. When I got to his desk, I waited for him to look at me. He looked at me in a manner that said, "What? You're bothering me!". I politely asked for permission to go to the bathroom.

He looked at the clock on the wall, back at me, at the watch on his wrist, back at me, and said, "Can you wait another twenty minutes? GOOD!" He looked down right away which told me that he didn't want to let me respond.

Suddenly, the room seemed hot and small. I knew everyone was looking at me. I turned around and locked my eyes on my desk, daring not to look at anyone. I sat down and locked my eyes on the teacher. I waited...and waited...I started to squirm more and more with the bladder threatening to burst.

Then, it happened. I could not hold it in anymore, no matter how hard I tried. I panicked a bit, worrying that the students could hear me peeing in my pants or smell that. Felt like I was going to pee for a long time. Finally, I stopped. I moved my butt up and down the chair to try to sop up the pee.

I sat there in silence, waiting for the bell to ring. When it finally rang, I pretended to have trouble getting my stuff together so I would be the last student to leave. The classroom was just 30 yards away from the principal's office, but it may as well be a mile because the students had filled the hallway and I knew that anyone could see that I had peed in my pants.

I breathed in deeply and lowered my head and walked out into the long walk to salvation. Simply told the secretary that I wet my pants. She called my mother. My mom came with pants and underwear. She tried to ask me what happened and I told her I didn't want to talk about it now.

After I finished the day and went home, I told my mother what happened and she blew her top. I learned years later that she threatened to sue the school...and that would have been for the 2nd time - the first time was when they put me in a different class and tried to play that off as "for academic reasons". About that 1st time, I'll save for another post.

The point was, I thought this was the norm for what had happened. I knew so little about the hearing culture. I didn't even know you weren't supposed to walk between two people conversing with each other without saying "excuse me". It was a major transition for me.

What do you get when you breed a whore with someone who's hyper-attentive?

The answer? An attention whore. ;) Yes, I was inspired to use the word "whore" in a post by Absolutely Narcissism. LOL

What's going on? I wanted to draw your attention to the left side of my blog...it's a poll asking you to voice your opinion on how I should guide my blog. Yes, I am an attention whore. LOL

The reason I am asking is I have noticed how the traffic really varies based on the nature of my posts. I know it's not the direct result from my rounds on other bloggers.

I started this blog at a blogger's urging (thank you, Shelle from BlokThoughts) because she was very curious about me, about how I would handle things, and about what my experiences were like when I was growing up.

I used to blog weekly on MySpace years ago, but it was more of using what was going on around the world and my life as my source of blogging. Got tired of MySpace's limiting design and switched to Facebook. Didn't like the blogging format on Facebook, so I stopped blogging altogether.

Almost three years ago, a friend nervously encouraged me to try out Blogger (she had a naughty blog and was worried about what I'd think of her - I totally supported her and I had no problem with that). I explored many different aspects of myself, but I never touched on my identity as a deaf person or as a deaf parent in Blogger. Then about a year and half later, I found Shelle and the rest is history.

I am ALWAYS interested in your opinions and I have enjoyed getting e-mail from you. Don't stop expressing yourself to me, either publicly or privately.

Story series - Mom, it wasn't me! It was that man's fault!

When Copyboy of Not Worth Mentioning! blog posted yesterday about the douche kicking sand in the dork's face, he had this picture up which triggered a memory recall.


When I saw this ad in one of my comics back in the 70's, I thought the only way to look like Charles Atlas was to do what the guy did in his room (see above, 1st picture in second row).

After trashing my room, I was standing there in my undies, looking at myself in the mirror and trying to see if muscles had somehow appeared on me (see above, 2nd picture in second row)...when my mom walked in on me.

Naturally, she wasn't happy about the condition of my room and I panicked...I said, "Mom, it wasn't me! It was that man's fault!" (pointing at Charles Atlas) as if she would believe that a man in a comic book had come to life and trashed my room. No matter how hard I tried to convince her that it wasn't me, she made me clean and put everything back in their places.

It took me a while to learn what all those words in that ad meant. Subliminal advertising. ;)

Story series - trying to blend in anonymously, part one

Gillian, from A Daft Scots Lass blog, made a comment on my "That Was It?" post which helped inspire me to post another story. She said, "This story really made me smile. I love to hear of bullies getting what they deserve." and that stirred a memory from high school. I had three bullies at my high school and I remember them all clearly. That's why the title of this post is "trying to blend in anonymously, part one".

I had made a mistake of putting myself on an accelerated pace of Algebra in 8th grade (I was trying to compete with other students for "first place" that existed only in my mind) because I found myself in 9th grade Algebra where it was normal to have two or three sections assigned daily. Why was that a mistake? I didn't understand what was going on, let alone learn effectively...and to exacerbate the matter further, I felt like a fish out of the water.

Didn't help that I was the lone deaf student in that class. A student took advantage of that. Never forgot him...his last name was Nugent and he made a big deal out of that by wearing Ted Nugent shirts. Never was related to Ted...he couldn't possibly have since his actions were more on par with the Neanderthal than with the homo erectus or even homo sapien.

Each and every time the teacher turned around to write things down on the blackboard, Nugent would try to bother me. At first, it was easy to ignore him because he tried to talk to the back of my head. Hello...I can't hear you...and you're in this class? Wow.

He finally figured out that he had to touch me in order to get my attention and that fed his feeding frenzy. I could tell that he wasn't being friendly to me - laughing at me and looking at his friends for encouragement is a dead giveaway. I tried to pretend to stare blankly at him as he either mumbled at me or spoke rapidly on purpose. That didn't work. I tried to ignore his taps on my back. Didn't work. Even tried brushing off his "touches". Made him more motivated than before.

I had to report Nugent to the principal when the teacher didn't believe me on what was going on. Nugent claimed that he was trying to help me understand whenever he talked to me. He was only reprimanded and the teacher was ordered by the principal to move Nugent to the opposite side of the classroom. Remember, this was the 80's. No suspensions, no detention hall, nothing.

Nugent kept bothering me in the class. He learned from one of the students that waving arms was an effective way to get my attention from a distance. He would laugh and wave his arms at me. I was extremely frustrated and that made it inifinitely harder for me to learn. The problem went away only because I was struggling too much to learn anything and I was moved to Intermediate Algebra.

That, was the "lightest" instance I had involving the three bullies in high school. I never interacted with Nugent again after I was reassigned to Intermediate Algebra. My sister moved on to 9th grade the following year and I found out from her why Nugent had disappeared. He got in trouble with the authorities over drugs and his parents moved away to avoid the shame.

Next Wednesday, I will write about Bully #2. Be sure to come back next week!