Viewing page 3 of 21

00:05:22
00:07:53
00:05:22
Playback Speed: 100%

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: [00:05:22]
{SPEAKER name="Simon Carmel"}
In this country, we have more than 200 deaf clubs. All over.

[00:05:28]
Now look, we like to know what it looks like in a deaf club, and they'll share that with you.

[00:05:36]
I'd like to begin with, uh, Steve. Your first experience going in to a deaf club. Meeting deaf people.

[00:05:54]
{SPEAKER name="Steve Jones"}
As I said before, I first became involved with deaf people because I worked with so many of them. When I went to work at the newspaper, many nights, I worked night shift. Many nights I would be the only hearing person around.

[00:06:10]
There would be deaf men working on both sides of me. In front of me and behind me. And since they couldn't learn to speak I learned to sign.

[00:06:19]
As my sign language progressed my friends helped me a lot they were very patient, very understanding.

[00:06:27]
In fact extremely patient when I remember how bad my signing was at the beginning.

[00:06:32]
The first time I went to a deaf club with friends, what my first impression as a hearing person was the music.

[00:06:42]
All deaf clubs have a jukebox and the volume is always turned up to maximum. Always.

[00:06:47]
The floor vibrates, your fingertips vibrate, everything vibrates. This is so that hearing impaired people can share in the music.

[00:06:58]
They, there are different degrees of hearing impairment, some people can hear fairly well. Some can't hear at all, some have, are from families that have been deaf for generations, and the jukeboxes are always turned up extremely loud.

[00:07:13]
The other week I went to a party following a softball tournament at the Maryland Washington Asscia—association of the deaf, their deaf club. The band was very good.

[00:07:25]
At one point we had to go outside because one man had locked his keys in his car, and we had to use a coat hanger to try to get his car door open. We were a block away and you could still hear the music.

[00:07:37]
Fortunately the club's located on top of a truck rental agency so nobody complains. It's an industrial type area.

[00:07:45]
I did hear one story from another friend of mine about the first time he took a hearing woman—he's a deaf man, the first time he took a hearing date to the deaf club