From: Karen.Keil@p0.f809.n104.z1.fidonet.org (Karen Keil)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: SHHH report 1 of 13
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:31:46 GMT
Reply-To: Karen.Keil@p0.f809.n104.z1.fidonet.org
Organization: FidoNet node 1:104/809.0 - Fantasy Mountain, Golden CO
X-Fidonet: Silent Talk Conference

Index Number: 23907

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

Observations of the SHHH Convention--Cedar Rapids, Iowa

This report will be day-by-day unless where noted. This tells
only what I saw or heard and doesn't necessarily cover everything
that happened.

June 24, 1992
     Finally got all ready to catch the plane from Denver to
Cedar Rapids.  I did not pack until the evening before---typical
to-the-last-minute preparations.  To top it off, I did not even
get off work until about 8:00 p.m., trying to wrap things up
before leaving.

     I won't tell you about the plane trip---just that an elderly
couple took the seat I was assigned to, and with the man
appearing sickly, I did not have the heart to ask the man to move
from 19A (my assigned window seat) to 19C (the aisle seat).  In
retrospect, they should have sat in the two seats next to the
aisle because the stewardess ended up having to reach over me to
give an oxygen tank to the man, who was having problems breathing
(and she periodically gave assistance throughout the flight).  We
finally took off after a delay of some 20 or so minutes.

      The plane took off about 11:20 a.m. and no lunch was
served.  It arrived in Cedar Rapids about 2:00 p.m.

     In due time, I arrived at the Roosevelt Hotel, which was
next door to the Five Seasons Hotel and Convention Center.  The
room on the 9th floor had a very musty odor, but opening the
window and then running the air conditioning helped clear up the
air (and it remained fresh for the rest of the stay).   It had a
good view of the Cedar River.

     The Hotel was old, built in 1927, and was not as nice as the
Five Seasons. Some conventioners complained about the
accommodations and one even moved after a night to the Five
Seasons.  (Jack O'Keeffe heard complaints but he had none for his
room, which was better than mine.)  It was fine for me once the
air was ventilated--the room, the furniture and bedding were
clean and recent and it suited me fine once I got over the lack
of a tiny refrigerator.  The hotel is in process of being
converted into senior residences and a lot of re-modelling has
already been done and is currently being done right now.  The
only bad part was the s-l-o-w-n-e-s-s of the elevators!

     The hotel did give me a signalling device for the phone and
the door (which I had requested) but there were no other special
accommodations--the Five Seasons Hotel had captioned TVs and a
TDD pay phone and who knows what else, which the Roosevelt did
not have.  Since I didn't spend a whole lot of time in my room
during the convention, the lack of captions was only an
inconvenience at night when watching the news and HBO.

Enough about hotels!

Two other conventioners flew on my flight, and after settling in
my room and calling home to report I had arrived safely, it was
after 4:00 p.m. and no lunch yet.  Lunch was finally obtained at
a McDonald's across the street on the next block (from the hotel)
where the two other conventioners from my flight were waiting in
line to order 'lunch,' too.  That evening, more conventioners
arrived, including the SHHH staff people. That evening was to be
my last 'quiet' evening until after the convention was over.

June 25, 1992

This was the official first day of the Convention, but nothing
big or important was going to happen until the Welcome Reception
that evening.

I went on the Tour to Dubuque, Iowa all that day.  The driver,
George Heeren, told us that he had a hearing-impaired young son.
We toured the Mathias Ham mansion, which was built in 1856 for a
wealthy lead ore magnate, and had a box lunch there.  The lady
guide was dressed in Civil War era costume.  She said that she
had never used a FM system before (most of us were using loop
systems) but she did fine.

We went on a cable car that went up the steep hill for 255 feet
to a lookout deck.  From the deck, we saw the grand old
Mississippi and the states of Illinois and Wisconsin on the other
side of the river as well as Iowa on our side.  That was the
closest I have been to Wisconsin (never been there).  I have been
to Illinois (via travelling through in 1959 and a plane change at
the Chicago airport in 1963).

After that, we had a guided tour of the Riverboat Museum where
we learned about the importance of the Mississippi and steam
boats in Dubuque's history.

My seat companion on the bus had a cochlear implant and we talked
about it at length on the way back to Cedar Rapids.  She said
that she had normal hearing until she was 35 years old and lost
it within days due to drugs for an illness.  She lost most of her
friends because they could not cope with a suddenly deaf friend.
She added that you can't lose with a cochlear implant--you have
potentially much to gain and nothing to lose by having one.

The Welcome Reception---
After picking up my convention packet and running out for a quick
run to the border at Taco Bell, I went to the Welcome Reception
where I met Jack and Ret O'Keeffe.  Having the advantage of
knowing what he looked like from a very small picture in the SHHH
Journal, I found him first.  It was interesting meeting people
at the reception.  One man from Washington State had created his
own FM system by buying an amplifier and a two-headed microphone
from Radio Shack and a loop from a FM system supplier. Altogether
it cost much less than a brand-name FM system.  He had me try it
out and it made the voices stand out with the background subdued.
The reception was noisy to begin with!

The featured act of the reception was a 36-year-old woman named
Linda Day, who was a professional singer (and still is!) before
she lost much of her hearing.  She has a 70 db loss, very close
to what mine was (73 db in high school) and sang beautifully
songs she wrote and composed.   One song, MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME
TRUE, made one think---

     Well now, don't put them off 'til tomorrow
     Your dreams aren't just things that you own
     Today will soon turn into yesterday
     And yesterday's chiseled in stone,
     Well now, if one of your dreams is neglected
     Fate might just steal it from you
     A dream is a promise you make to yourself
     So do everything you can do...
     To make your dreams come true.
     (Music and words by Linda Day, copyrighted 1991)

It is said that she sings in a style reminiscent of Anne Murray.
At any rate, I enjoyed her singing, which sounded very pretty.

Jack and Ret O'Keeffe and I returned to the Roosevelt Hotel via
the skywalk (had a little trouble finding an unlocked door!)
and they showed me pictures of their family and some Silentalkers
at the Little Rock Convention in their suite.

To be continued-----
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