Growing up Deaf - Part 15

Attending College - Part 2

Since my family lived in southeastern Illinois at the time, I was able to take Amtrak home and back to college. It would take about 23-25 hours. The layover in Chicago would be around 8-10 hours. I managed to pass it by walking around the area including going up Sears Tower, putting my stuff in the station's lockers.

While on Amtrak from home back to Rochester, it wasn't unusual to have around a few other deaf going the same way. At one point, we took over two tables in the food car. When we got to Rochester, it wasn't unusual for us to pile into two or three taxis back to the campus. Either that or someone on the campus gave us rides. Once it was my roommate and I on the same train!

Another roomie I had was from southern Florida, and at one point, he turned up the heat so high, that even though the weather outside wasn't that cold, it turned the room into a sauna. No amount of begging or talking to him from anyone would get him to turn it down or off or open the window. At the time, I had an Atari 130XE with multiple floppy drives attached, and the heat caused some problems to occur, even causing one drive to fail.

It was also here that I started to get involved in theatre. I was in a couple performances, one of the characters being a dumb idiotic waiter, which I played pretty well. There were many good directors and instructors around the Theatre Department, some of whom are still there. I didn't just perform on stage, I was an usher, did prop and stage work, a little lighting, and then some. I still do a little performing today.

Next - College - final part.