Argentine Journal — Fathers & Sons
Written by Duke Osborne on February 3rd, 2009 | 2 CommentsSuper Sunday? Absolutely! The shared bonds of man, his son, and his son’s son.
Yesterday I spoke with my 88-year old father in Florida, catching up with his weekend. The usual routines for him, attending church, breakfasting with friends, visiting my mother in the nursing home (stricken with Alzheimer’s). As American males, we naturally did a post mortem on the big game, the Super Bowl. We concurred that it turned out to be an entertaining and exciting game.
How had I spent the game, he asked?
Well … although the youngsters were not with me this week, I had invited Ben over to watch, as he would be relegated to the backup TV at his mother’s house.
Watching the game, I noticed the captions were behind, especially on some of the controversial moments. Ben asked me questions that the announcers were discussing or had just touched upon (was his knee down? was his arm moving forward, or was it a fumble?), but the captions lagged. I’d cue to him that the announcers were discussing it, and we’d wait the moment as the captions came through.
We two watched the rest of the game, including the very exciting fourth quarter, then I returned him to his mother’s house.
Similar to my father and me in years past, Ben and I shared the Super Bowl together, bonding over the game, eating lots of food, watching the ads.
With a twist: captions and cues were part of our experience, as they always are, as they always will be.
A Super Sunday? Absolutely! I spent the Super Bowl with my special son, Ben, as once upon a time my father spent the games with me. Hearing or deaf, the love of a father and son endures.
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More from Duke Osborne
- Graduating Thoughts — Is Forever Enough?
- Random Questions
- Dream Girl
- Under Exam — Failure or Needs Improvement?
- November Dates
More from Personal Stories
- About Duke Osborne
- Duke is the cueing father of a deaf son, Ben, and hearing daughter, Maddie. He learned to cue not long after Ben lost his hearing in October 1995 (when Ben was 3 ½ years old), and is a past President of the Maryland Cued Speech Association. Along with Ben and Maddie’s mother, he was strongly attracted to cueing because it provides access to literacy by conveying the phonemes of the spoken language (American English in this case). Ben is fully mainstreamed in school, relying on a CST and his cochlear implant. Both Ben and Maddie attend school in Montgomery County, Maryland. Duke lives in Silver Spring, plays in a weekly pickup basketball game, and is trying to learn Spanish.
Duke Osborne's RSS
February 4th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Such a “guy thing”! I love it!
March 21st, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Duke, it is rare to see men in Cued Speech, big grown men who actually practice the system, and not just “learn it”. Reading your post was gratifying. We should start a club. But then again the Supreme Court would come after us, but thats OK, bring ‘em on!
As for captioning… everytime I go over to someones house to watch college or pro basketball, or baseball, they always fumble with the remote trying to turn on the captioning when they realize I am not following whats being babbled on by the announcers. I actually prefer to watch basketball without captioning, they get in the way, and basketball is a language in itself, you understand the game, you dont need to hear what they are saying. In baseball, I do like the NESN announcers of Red Sox Nation (Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo, they are a class act) but when the Sox go into October I turn off the captioninng because 80% of the stuff Buck McCarver (FOX) says is just useless to me.
Anyway, bottom line is, way to go — I have a Dad who has never ever shied from cueing, and I’m glad Ben has that same experience.
Josh