Silent ‘chat’ the norm at Hermon event

HERMON – Fingers flew at Pleasant Hill Campground this weekend as campers from Maine communities as far off as Sebago and Scarborough gathered for the third annual summertime campout for members of Bangor Chapter One, informally referred to as the “deaf club” by members.

A visit to Pleasant Hill late Saturday afternoon found a large group of campers of all ages happily chatting in American Sign Language, while barbecued chicken, burgers and hot dogs sizzled over a large grill set up just outside the campground’s large wooden pavilion.

“I am more or less in charge of this,” said club trustee Richard Oakes through interpreter Shara “Lee” Barris, a Hampden resident. According to Oakes, some of the weekend’s highlights were cribbage and horseshoe tournaments and, of course, the eagerly anticipated nighttime bonfires.

“I would say that probably 90 people have come so far, about 70 of them staying overnight,” said Oakes, a founding club member whose wife, Jeanne, also is deaf.

Oakes was among those who established the club as a way to unite the region’s deaf community.

“I wanted the deaf community to grow and become closer,” he explained. “We have meetings and social events. We celebrate Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving together. We also organize outings,” Oakes said, like the one to Six Flags New England in Massachusetts later this summer. A deaf awareness event at the amusement park is expected to draw some 3,000 people. “It’s mostly all deaf associations who’ll be attending.”

Added Kelly Howe, club treasurer, “Sometimes we feel isolated and we wanted to build a strong community.”

The campout – with headquarters in the largely wooded area the club reserved out behind the pavilion and frog and fishponds – is among the group’s most popular events, members agreed.

“We just talk and talk all night long,” signed club President Gina Pitcher. “This is our chance to catch up on what’s been happening in all of our lives.”

Though the camping group consisted of people who are deaf or hearing-impaired and family and friends who do hear, those not fluent in ASL were definitely in the minority. A campground staffer who came upon the group in the throes of a boisterous horseshoe contest Saturday morning said she was surprised to find the tourney being conducted in near silence.

According to Pitcher, children who are deaf, as well as hearing children born to parents who are deaf, learn to sign as babies. For most, it is their first language.

“All children learn the language of their parents,” she said. In English-speaking areas such as the United States and most of Canada, American Sign Language is used, but there are variations in areas where other languages, such as French, Spanish, German, dominate.

“I learned as a baby,” said 10-year-old Katrina Duchesne of Sebago. Though both of her parents are deaf, she said, the only thing that made her childhood any different from that of her friends was that her grandmother temporarily moved in to help out in case she woke up during the night.

Barris’ daughter, Jenny Sheedy, just graduated from the Gov. Baxter School for the Deaf in Portland. Joining the two for the campout were Jenny’s younger stepsister, Kaelyn Sheedy, and her stepmother, Yollie Sheedy.

According to Kaelyn Sheedy, who lives in Scarborough, some of the recent advances in computer technology, e-mail and Internet chat for example, have made keeping in touch with loved ones and making new friends that much easier for deaf people like Jenny.

A tall teen-ager with a crown of loose curls tucked into her baseball cap, Jenny said she is eager to explore the larger world outside of Maine. But first, she noted, she wants to enroll in some local college courses to brush up on her English skills. She then plans to apply to Gallaudet University, a renowned educational institution for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, or a similar school in New York.