By Cyndi Jones, Publisher
Telephone service. Most of us take it for granted that we can pick up a phone and call anyone anywhere in the world þ or just phone home.
The very first article I worked on for MAINSTREAM (in 1976) was on San Diego's Deaf Community Services' Telephone Relay Service.
This was the first time I realized the obstacles that the deaf community had in using the telephone. I was shocked to find out that this relay service was only available Monday through Friday from 9 to 5. What happened on the weekend? What if there was an emergency? I guess you just couldn't have an emergency on the weekend.
How many times do you call someone just to be in touch with them, just to "hear" their voice? When there were two operators using teletype machines to service an entire community, there was no time for chit-chat. That was a luxury the deaf community didn't have.
I had come in contact with another world, a world that was invisible to me. And what I found out was San Diegans were lucky, many cities in the U.S. didn't even have this limited service in 1976.
About a dozen years later, in 1988, I had a personal encounter with this reality at National Airport, just after the Gallaudet Deaf President Now strike. I was flying home, or rather I was supposed to be flying home, only a storm had come up and most flights were canceled. The gentleman in front of me at the ticket counter was also trying to go home to San Diego. I listened as the agent said that our flight was canceled, but there was still one flight leaving from a different terminal. Eager to get home, I barged in and said I was going to San Diego too, were there two seats? "Yes, but you'd need to hurry to make it."
The gentleman offered to help me with my luggage and we raced across the airport trying to get home that Friday evening. As we reached the gate he said, "You go on ahead and check us in. I have to find a TDD to call home. I'm staying with a deaf couple and they will have no way of knowing that the plane is delayed."
I remember thinking, "How is he going to find a TDD at the airport?" There wasn't a TDD at every phone bank. In fact, there were only a couple in the whole airport. Sure enough, he made his call and got back in time to make the plane.
Telephone access -- something so ordinary that most of us take it for granted -- has only been guaranteed since Title 4 of the ADA was implemented July 26, 1993.
This issue of MAINSTREAM focuses on telecommunications for people who are deaf, hard-of-hearing and speech disabled. Read "Go Ahead," and "I'll Make That Call Myself, Thank You." And check out the resource guide "Talking Communications."
How far have we come? Well, the statistics say that if you divide the number of minutes of relay service by the number of eligible consumers, everyone got one 6 minute call last year. ONE six minute call.
I guess there's a long way to go. But at least you can have an emergency on the weekend now.
Cyndi Jones is Publisher of MAINSTREAM.
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