Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love by Myron Uhlberg Page A
Authors: Myron Uhlberg
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flecks. The meal concluded, as it always did, with a fortune cookie, the message of which, much prized and heartily laughed over by my father and mother, made absolutely no sense to me, although I liked the taste of the cookie itself.
But this day there was a change in the ritual.
After a close study of the bill, minutely itemized but thoroughly incomprehensible except for the total cost, my father paid and then turned to me and signed, “You can read now. It’s time for you to get a library card.”
Above the Chinese restaurant was our local library. I had heard about this place from the older kids, but I had never set foot there, since you needed a library card to enter, as I had been told (warned) by the big kids. They said the place contained every book that had ever been printed in the whole world. I had no idea if this was true. Every book? Why, there must be hundreds of them, I thought. Having just learned to read really well, I was more than idly curious as to the truth of the matter: every book? But then, the older kids could not be trusted. Most everything they told us, every warning they solemnly uttered, turned out to be greatly overblown.
My father and mother were great readers. Being deaf, they went to books as their main source of daily entertainment. Our little apartment was filled with books, books of all kinds. Some books were filled with pictures of far-off places depicting pyramids, camels, endless sand deserts, giant rivers, high waterfalls, deep canyons, strange beasts, and sailing ships. I especially loved the pictures of wooden-hulled, canvas-masted, cannonade-sided sailing vessels breaking, oaken shouldered, through giant frothy waves. And now that I had learned to read what the words under these pictures said, I had been dreaming of having a library card of my very own—a dream that was now about to be realized.
Exiting the Chinese restaurant, we made a hard right and entered an adjacent door leading to a steep flight of well-trod wooden stairs.
At the top of the stairs was a painted glass door proclaiming, “Brooklyn Public Library.” Pushing it open, my father led us into a single large room. The first thing I noticed was that it was filled, end to end, top to bottom, with every book that had ever been printed in the whole world. The second was that the place smelled like a Chinese restaurant. (The library was just above the restaurant kitchen.)
I could hardly believe that the hundreds of books lining the shelves were free for the asking. As a child of the Depression, I had been drilled in the sure knowledge that everything had a price. Everything. The idea that merely by presenting a library card—nothing more than a piece of cardboard—I would be allowed to remove these precious books seemed inconceivable.
At first I found the trust placed in me near to overwhelming. I would examine every single page of a book with the care of a brain surgeon before I would dream of checking it out. If there was even a single crease at the corner of a page—or, horrors, a food stain somewhere on the page—I would bring that blemish to the attention of the librarian. And she would note on the flyleaf, in her spidery handwriting, “Peanut butter stain? Pg. 36.” Or all too commonly, “Underlining. Pg. 12.” Even now, many decades later, I still find myself flipping through the pages of a library book, prior to checkout, to ascertain its condition.
What I found most miraculous about the library was the sheer quantity of words to be found in the seemingly endless army of books marching shoulder to shoulder, row upon row, on the shelves. Words. Words. Words. Written words. Preserved words. The library was a warehouse of words. Words to decipher. Words to learn. Words to add to my vocabulary. Words to make mine.
The words found in books were in sharp contrast to the words of my first language. Sign is a live, contemporaneous, visual-gestural language and consists of hand shapes, hand positioning,
But this day there was a change in the ritual.
After a close study of the bill, minutely itemized but thoroughly incomprehensible except for the total cost, my father paid and then turned to me and signed, “You can read now. It’s time for you to get a library card.”
Above the Chinese restaurant was our local library. I had heard about this place from the older kids, but I had never set foot there, since you needed a library card to enter, as I had been told (warned) by the big kids. They said the place contained every book that had ever been printed in the whole world. I had no idea if this was true. Every book? Why, there must be hundreds of them, I thought. Having just learned to read really well, I was more than idly curious as to the truth of the matter: every book? But then, the older kids could not be trusted. Most everything they told us, every warning they solemnly uttered, turned out to be greatly overblown.
My father and mother were great readers. Being deaf, they went to books as their main source of daily entertainment. Our little apartment was filled with books, books of all kinds. Some books were filled with pictures of far-off places depicting pyramids, camels, endless sand deserts, giant rivers, high waterfalls, deep canyons, strange beasts, and sailing ships. I especially loved the pictures of wooden-hulled, canvas-masted, cannonade-sided sailing vessels breaking, oaken shouldered, through giant frothy waves. And now that I had learned to read what the words under these pictures said, I had been dreaming of having a library card of my very own—a dream that was now about to be realized.
Exiting the Chinese restaurant, we made a hard right and entered an adjacent door leading to a steep flight of well-trod wooden stairs.
At the top of the stairs was a painted glass door proclaiming, “Brooklyn Public Library.” Pushing it open, my father led us into a single large room. The first thing I noticed was that it was filled, end to end, top to bottom, with every book that had ever been printed in the whole world. The second was that the place smelled like a Chinese restaurant. (The library was just above the restaurant kitchen.)
I could hardly believe that the hundreds of books lining the shelves were free for the asking. As a child of the Depression, I had been drilled in the sure knowledge that everything had a price. Everything. The idea that merely by presenting a library card—nothing more than a piece of cardboard—I would be allowed to remove these precious books seemed inconceivable.
At first I found the trust placed in me near to overwhelming. I would examine every single page of a book with the care of a brain surgeon before I would dream of checking it out. If there was even a single crease at the corner of a page—or, horrors, a food stain somewhere on the page—I would bring that blemish to the attention of the librarian. And she would note on the flyleaf, in her spidery handwriting, “Peanut butter stain? Pg. 36.” Or all too commonly, “Underlining. Pg. 12.” Even now, many decades later, I still find myself flipping through the pages of a library book, prior to checkout, to ascertain its condition.
What I found most miraculous about the library was the sheer quantity of words to be found in the seemingly endless army of books marching shoulder to shoulder, row upon row, on the shelves. Words. Words. Words. Written words. Preserved words. The library was a warehouse of words. Words to decipher. Words to learn. Words to add to my vocabulary. Words to make mine.
The words found in books were in sharp contrast to the words of my first language. Sign is a live, contemporaneous, visual-gestural language and consists of hand shapes, hand positioning,
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