Miss-Delectable
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TimesDispatch.com | Making friends at DeafNation
The most common decoration on the T-shirts, bags and bric-a-brac at the DeafNation Expo yesterday looks like this: a left hand with thumb and index finger at right angles, middle and ring finger tucked down, pinkie extended.
Ask Miss Deaf Virginia, Kathryn McGhee of Midlothian what it means and get yet another of her friendly laughs.
Almost all the more than 2,500 people at the day long exposition knew -- it's a basic of sign language, that dance of fingers and hands that filled the Greater Richmond Convention Center yesterday.
McGhee, standing by the Virginia Association of the Deaf booth, which was selling T-shirts listing top 10 reasons for learning sign language, was beaming in the middle of what organizers say was one of the largest gatherings ever of Virginia's deaf community.
Those reasons, by the way, include being able to communicate through windows, chatting with your mouth full -- and making friends with deaf people.
Which was a big part of what was happening at DeafNation, along with meeting friends and checking out the flood of new technology that helps deaf people communicate more easily.
It's vital to let people get a look at new technology, said Joel Barish, chief executive officer of DeafNation, which holds about a dozen expos a year across the country, including its first ever in Richmond yesterday.
So, too, is a chance to see deaf actors and other performers.
And people from across the state.
"It's not always in our everyday lives that we're among a lot of deaf people," Barish said. "So this is a big day for everybody."
The key to the expo, he said, is that it is a kind of celebration of the deaf community.
"It is a really, really good feeling," said McGhee, a John Tyler Community College student.
Oh. And that sign? The L of thumb and index finger, the extended pinkie. That sign that's everywhere, what does it mean?
"Love," she laughed.
The most common decoration on the T-shirts, bags and bric-a-brac at the DeafNation Expo yesterday looks like this: a left hand with thumb and index finger at right angles, middle and ring finger tucked down, pinkie extended.
Ask Miss Deaf Virginia, Kathryn McGhee of Midlothian what it means and get yet another of her friendly laughs.
Almost all the more than 2,500 people at the day long exposition knew -- it's a basic of sign language, that dance of fingers and hands that filled the Greater Richmond Convention Center yesterday.
McGhee, standing by the Virginia Association of the Deaf booth, which was selling T-shirts listing top 10 reasons for learning sign language, was beaming in the middle of what organizers say was one of the largest gatherings ever of Virginia's deaf community.
Those reasons, by the way, include being able to communicate through windows, chatting with your mouth full -- and making friends with deaf people.
Which was a big part of what was happening at DeafNation, along with meeting friends and checking out the flood of new technology that helps deaf people communicate more easily.
It's vital to let people get a look at new technology, said Joel Barish, chief executive officer of DeafNation, which holds about a dozen expos a year across the country, including its first ever in Richmond yesterday.
So, too, is a chance to see deaf actors and other performers.
And people from across the state.
"It's not always in our everyday lives that we're among a lot of deaf people," Barish said. "So this is a big day for everybody."
The key to the expo, he said, is that it is a kind of celebration of the deaf community.
"It is a really, really good feeling," said McGhee, a John Tyler Community College student.
Oh. And that sign? The L of thumb and index finger, the extended pinkie. That sign that's everywhere, what does it mean?
"Love," she laughed.