Jan 11 2009
Myron Uhlberg: First Meeting
I first met Myron Uhlberg in March 2005 at the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts (OCTELA) spring conference.
The conference theme that year related to disabilities. I saw in the program line-up an author named Myron Uhlberg. Never heard of him. But from the blurb about him, I learned that he was the child of deaf parents, and his children’s book The Printer was based on his own deaf father who was a printer. I decided I wanted to hear this guy speak, and it would be worth half off the conference fee to present a workshop session. So I submitted a proposal for a workshop on something I knew fairly well, deafness and literature (fiction and non-fiction about or related to deafness) and sign language. I got my discounted fee plus two days off school, so I was looking forward to this conference. I thought this Myron guy might be interesting too.
After I checked into the conference on the first morning, I wandered past the booths of vendors, primarily booksellers. I stopped at the Peachtree Publishing table where they displayed Uhlberg’s books, including a new one I had not seen yet. I told the woman working the booth that I had loved The Printer, as had my deaf students and colleagues, and how exciting it was to see Dad, Jackie, and Me was also centered around a deaf father and hearing son. The woman seemed to remember something and asked if I was Nancy Boone. Of course I was surprised but answered yes. Then she really floored me: she said Myron was looking for me! He had seen my workshop session in the program booklet and was keen to meet someone who knew sign and worked with the deaf. I was flattered and told her I would keep an eye out for him to introduce myself, then headed off to a session.
Later in the morning, I saw a thin man with graying hair holding a newspaper and a small briefcase walking toward me down the corridor. I was pretty sure it was Myron, since I’d seen his picture in the conference program, so I waved a greeting and approached. For a moment he looked at me blankly, then quickly glanced down at my name tag. As soon as he saw my name he exclaimed, “Oh, Nancy!” then switched to sign language to say, “Nice to meet you!” And instead of a formal handshake for our first meeting, he wrapped me in a warm hug. That was it; we were friends.
In long and short moments stolen between sessions, Myron and I shared our respective stories and experiences in the deaf/Deaf world. I was fascinated to learn about his deaf parents’ lives in New York–how both his mother and father went to residential schools for the deaf where sign language was strictly banned, so students taught one another and conversed in sign in secret. He spoke with such love for his parents, and with special admiration for his father the printer. He autographed my books and made me a four-cornered newspaper printer’s hat.
Myron gave his keynote speech on Saturday morning at an 8 a.m. session. I was disappointed at the turnout due to the early hour, as I felt a bit like the conference attendees had snubbed my friend. However, Myron’s speech washed away those feelings of disappointment. I was entranced by his stories…stories about growing up with his deaf parents, stories about how he came to write his books. I found myself laughing at many scenarios he described, then quickly welling up with tears at others. My heart absolutely broke as he told of being a young boy, called upon to interpret for his deaf father in the hearing world again and again, and having insensitive and ignorant hearing people begin their message with, “Tell the dummy…” It was evident in Myron’s tone of voice and body language that, even now in his 70s, Myron still felt the pain of those words aimed like poison darts at the father he adored. But, masterful storyteller that he is, Myron would not leave us on a sad note. He finished his presentation by calling up a helper (one of the conference planners) to read aloud his book The Printer so that he could translate it into sign. Again, my eyes welled with tears (as they always do) near the end of the story, but now they were tears of pride as the deaf character’s co-workers surrounded him to sign “thank you” for saving them from a fire in the newspaper printing room.
I knew Myron had to visit my school. We exchanged contact information, and I expressed my hope that we could arrange his visit for the coming fall. We corresponded through e-mail, sparsely at first. Finally I had arrangements in place on my end and began to work out the details with Myron. By the time the new year had come and gone, Myron had thought plans might have fallen through but was glad they were in fact going forward. We set up a two-day visit in May of 2006…and that will be Part Two of my story. 
