Memoirs Part 5

Of course, I was too young to smoke at that time, but… we could always find a way to get a cigarette. My brother was in the major seminary. I could visit him once a week. He was old enough to smoke so when we could meet privately, he would give me a cigarette only if I asked for it in sign language. I learned the alphabet and a few words. I still remember the letters but have forgotten all but a few of the words.

This reminds me of a story – I was in the Air Force on a TDY (temporary duty) in Austin, Texas. We were there supporting a joint fighter aircraft exercise. After the bars closed, a few of us went to a Denny’s restaurant before heading back to the motel where we were housed. I noticed a table with four or five people using sign language. I decided to walk over to see if I could sign with them, through the objections of my friends. When Iwalked up to the table, I just signed “hi”. They, of course, all gave me a strange look like “what is this jerk doing?” The I signed, “My name is BobYoung”. Then they signed, using words rather than the alphabet, very quickly so I asked them to slow down. As you can guess, spelling out each word is troublesome, but they respected my trying and asked me to sit down. We signed for about a half hour. I explained why I learned how to sign. They thought it was funny, but they appreciated the fact that I learned how to do it. They asked me to join them on the next day at a sign language convention/seminar, but I couldn’t get away from work. I was just happy to have the chance to use my limited ability with signing.

This reminds me of a different story. While studying Japanese in Okinawa, my teacher was a college professor at the Ryukyu University. I think he was a professor of sociology and he taught at a University in New York for several years. There were other Japanese professors teaching in that area, so they had weekly meetings. When it was his turn to be the group secretary, he would type the meeting notes in Japanese using only hiragana and katakana – no kanji. Hiragana are used for Japanese words and katakana are used for foreign words; they are only used like the alphabet. Kanji are actually words. His fellow professors would get upset with him for not using any kanji, they would get a headache from reading several pages and having to sound out each word. I think that while I was using the sign language at Denny’s, they felt the same way, but in my case, they knew that I didn’t know the signs for complete words.

Well… Recently, I read that the seminary will be converted into some type of hotel. I would like to visit there someday and walk the trails down to Lake Washington.