Once More Unto the Breach

A lobby half full of ALDAns stretched out before me. Stiffen the sinews, Bill, conjure up the blood. Diguise fair nature….No, no, this isn’t war. Relax. Deep breath. ALDA conference. Karaoke. Think fun. 

But 15 years away from ALDA had eroded my composure. Did I really want to plunge into the pool again? What if the water was cold? I glanced quickly around  but didn’t see anyone I knew for certain. There were a few faces I vaguely recognized, like indistinct, lingering images of a dream. But I couldn’t attach names to the faces, and I didn’t want to stop and guess. With Vaughn close behind, I strode briskly towards the reservations desk. 

I felt relief when I got to the counter. I've stayed in a lot of hotels over the years and know the check-in routine by rote: "Graham; GRAham; yes, William; four nights, (give credit card), (sign slip), one key is fine, where do I go?, thank you." Piece of cake, even if the clerk has an impenetrable accent. This clerk seemed a bit uneasy to communicate with me, maybe because with two c.i.'s attached to my head I was obviously one of t-h-e-m. I saw a card with the fingerspelling alphabet on the desk before him and playfully said “Good luck with that!” to which he smiled. I then reflected that his likely slowness in fingerspelling a word would actually be a perfect pace for many ALDAns, not necessarily excluding me. 

Before I got to "where do I go?" I felt a tap on the shoulder. I turned warily to see who was tapping and...Phil Bravin!...Phil!...PHIL!!...I sprung forward and gave him a big hug, Deaf style. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?” I said-and-signed in disbelief. Phil fails the litmus test of late-deafness by a country mile. He is what people call strong Deaf, from a multigenerational-ASL-forever Deaf family. Not strong ALDA at all. So why was he at ALDAcon? Then I remembered Phil had become a consultant for CSDVRS, one of the video-relay titans, which had an exhibit booth at the conference. His crafty-fox grin broke into a hearty chuckle.

Phil and I go way back, all the way back to my ALDA heyday, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. We served many years together on the Gallaudet Board of Trustees--he was board Chair; I, an acolyte--and all the years he was there we had these little bowls of M&Ms around the boardroom table during afternoon sessions. After he left the board, the M&Ms unexpectedly left too. I mourned both losses. 

We hadn't totally lost touch: He returned to Gallaudet occasionally while I was still on the board, and he always sends me his annual Christmas letter, which becomes longer every year as his extended family multiplies. (Each letter includes a Bravin family photo, now possible only with a fisheye lens.) Although we had our differences about what happened at Gallaudet two years ago, my respect and affection for Strong D Phil has never wavered. So when I saw him there at the Doubletree, I broke into a slaphappy smile that utterly demolished my unease about attending ALDAcon.

"Sir, the elevator is behind you." Still smiling, I looked at the desk clerk and said: "Thanks!" Suddenly that lobby of conference-goers looked a helluva lot more inviting. Sweetheart, get me rewrite: little d Bill has landed.

Return to ALDAcon

Three weeks ago I attended my first full ALDAcon in 15 years. Although I had taken part in several committees planning the Con, I felt uneasy about going to it. I had never attended a Con as a normal human being, only as a leader or a keynote speaker. When you lead or keynote, people expect you to have super powers that can save the day or at least a plenary luncheon. You always have to act like you know what you’re doing or saying, even when you don’t. But as a late-deafened adult, I excel at that sort of bluffing, and I like to do things I am good at. Leading or speaking gives me an opportunity to deploy my special skills, not to mention satisfy my lifelong need to be the center of attention.

But as ALDAcon 2008 bore down on me, with growing anxiety I realized that I had no role to slip into other than conference-goer. Oh sure, I was co-presenter in one plenary session, but I still had more than 25 other hours to fill. I’m just not the kind of person who goes to conferences without a predetermined role. Conferences cost a lot of money, for one thing, and--perhaps because I spend so much time on the margins of hearing society--I’m comfortable being a loner. Attend conferences? I’d rather sit through six-hour cheerleading meets, high in the stands far from the crowd, doing a crossword puzzle while waiting for my kids to perform their two-minute routines. Or so I told myself.

My friend Vaughn came in from California for the Con. He stayed at our house on Tuesday, the day before the conference began. Vaughn hadn’t been to a Con in almost as long as I hadn’t, and it took extensive goading to get him to come.

Now if you know anything about Vaughn, you know that this fellow loves to golf. On any given day, he’ll happily golf till the cows come home and are asleep in the barn. Since I live on a golf course it was predictable that I’d suggest we play golf on Wednesday, even though it was 45 degrees outside. That’s just common hospitality, but in truth it was also a conscious effort on my part to get to the Con a little later than planned and chip off a few hours of all that conference downtime that awaited me.

Before I left home for the Con, I confessed to Karina that I really didn’t feel like going. She stifled a sigh and gave a semi-exasperated nod. After 18 years of marriage it’s fair to say she knows me and my cold feet well, so her "Oh c’mon, Guillermo" demeanor was like a reassuring hug and helped propel me out the door. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Vaughn and I took a commuter train downtown, about a 65-minute trip. He has a cochlear implant and I have two, but I couldn’t understand much he was saying on the noisy train. So by the second station I had my nose in a magazine and he was playing with his sacred iPhone. Soon enough we were downtown and in a cab on our way to the Doubletree Hotel, the site of the Con.

When we got to the hotel, my angst returned as if on cue. I saw people in the lobby signing badly together or straining forward with obvious difficulty towards the person talking to them. These were ALDAns. No doubt about it. What now?