When I was working on The Captioned ABC News at public television in Boston, I was sent (along with my deaf friend Sandy T, left) to the National Association of the Deaf Convention to cover its centennial celebration, interview its organizers and phone in daily news reports. (I have no idea who this signing man in the natty three-piece suit is, but evidently he was important enough that the two of us needed to interview him.) Some of my memories of this trip to Cincinnati: walking across the bridge into Kentucky to watch the fireworks on July 4, making a beeline to Skyline Chili to try a three-way, attending a deaf disco in the convention hotel in which the bass was turned up so high I thought my fillings would fall out, attending a late-night party with my friend Eleanor in a room whose sliding door gave onto the hotel’s pool area (and, because we were so out-of-it, walking back through the wrong door into the bedroom of soundly sleeping strangers.) After almost a week of being at this non-speaking convention, imagine my surprise when I decided to take a walk early one morning and heard someone on the street say the first word I’d heard in days: maquillage.
That's Albert T. Pimentel, executive director of the National Assn. of the Deaf at that time. I remember his name -- "Deaf people may think it's 'pimento'." I also remember THAT suit. Some awful wag said if you remove his glasses, his nose and beard come off with them. Cue giggles from the Two Sandys" and Eleanor.
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