Sign Language

When a deaf child tells Santa Claus what he or she wants for Christmas, Santa has to read what the child is saying in sign language - and be able to respond in sign language too. And where can you find a Santa who knows sign- language? At the Montgomery Mall on Saturday mornings. This Santa can and does talk to any child - those who can hear, those who can't, those who talk, those who sign. This Santa sometimes goes by the name of Hank Fox, a Prudential insurance agent from Warminster.

EVEN AFTER the mayor backtracked yesterday, it's hard to imagine a dumber move than trying to take the "Christmas" out of the Christmas Village market at Dilworth Plaza - at least once it was already there. Anyone who knows about the cable-TV/talk- radio crusade against an alleged secular-Jewish-Muslim-atheist "War on Christmas" could have told Managing Director Richard Negrin that the picture of workers removing the word "Christmas" from the sign was guaranteed to go viral. And so it did, stirring up an unnecessary controversy wrapped up in lots of misunderstanding and divisiveness.

High-tech jargon - hard enough to understand even after close listening - poses special problems for Gary Behm. So Behm is tackling the task in a special way. He's helping to devise a new language. Behm, 31, is an IBM engineer and specializes in manufacturing systems engineering (MSE) at Lehigh University. He has also been deaf since birth, and out of necessity, he and translator Nancy Abreu are creating new sign language for advanced technology, a career area few deaf people have explored.

In the '60s, angry and frustrated homeowners packed Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations hearings to complain about "blockbusting. " That's the practice of real-estate firms' papering neighborhoods with "For Sale" and "SOLD" signs to panic whites, afraid of racial change, into selling cheap. After hundreds of complaints and several lawsuits, the commission in 1970 persuaded City Council to approve an ordinance banning "SOLD" signs on residential properties and requiring "For Sale" signs to be removed within seven days after the agreement of sale is signed.

Educators at Camden County College are seeking approval for a sign-language program that would enable students to obtain an associate's degree in interpreter education. Officials for the New Jersey Board of Higher Education are expected to make a decision tomorrow. If the program is approved, it will become the second of its kind in the state. Union County College in Cranford is currently the only school to offer a degree in sign language. "There is a tremendous shortage of interpreters in this area, and interpreting for the hearing impaired is really an emerging profession," said program director Robert Kaczorowski, who also is dean of liberal arts and social service careers.

Whirling and twirling like a flower in the wind, Kalin Morrell danced across the floor of her kindergarten classroom to the music of "Be Our Guest. " Joining her were seven other 5- and 6-year-olds, each following in the footsteps of dance teacher Beth Ann Finisdore. A special guest instructor visiting the Wallingford-Swarthmore kindergarten center on Wednesday, Finisdore shared not only a love of movement with her students, but also the disability of being hearing-impaired. "I'm severely to profoundly deaf, but my parents believed in my being exposed to music, dance and sports," Finisdore said.

Perhaps it's his status as a starter on the boys' soccer team. Definitely, sixth grader Matt Kochie has a lot of friends in town. Whichever, his transfer this fall to Samuel M. Ridgway from the Marie Katzenbach School for the Deaf in Trenton had an interesting side effect: More than 50 students tried to get into the middle school's sign-language class. About 25, all fellow sixth graders, eventually were allowed to enroll. "The other kids see he's not handicapped, that he gets out there and plays an excellent game of soccer," said Glenn Edwards, a math teacher at Ridgway and a girls' soccer coach, "and it carries right over to the school system.

Going to church for Beth and Bill Lockard usually meant a weekly commute from West Chester to Northeast Philadelphia, where they attended St. Philip's Lutheran Church for the Deaf. Beth, who is expecting the couple's second child, lost her hearing as a child after a bout with spinal meningitis. Occasionally, the Lockards would attend Calvary Lutheran Church in West Chester, where Bill, who is not deaf, would end up interpreting the service through sign language for Beth.

As part of a yearlong project, the Community Service Program at Merion Elementary School in the Lower Merion School District has focused on disabilities awareness. In the fall and winter, children learned sign language and developed pen pals with students from schools for the blind and hearing impaired. They heard speakers explain how physically challenged people use adaptive devices to live as independently as possible. Some of the students had the opportunity to meet Heather Whitestone, Miss America, when she came to Philadelphia to present awards to area students from schools for the deaf.

Pat Burrell has a message for Lenny Dykstra. And Curt Schilling. And Mark Portugal. Oh, and you too, Ed Wade. He's no J.D. Drew. "I feel once you're drafted by a professional team, there's a certain prestige in that," said Burrell, the University of Miami junior third baseman the Phillies are considering taking with the top pick in this year's June draft. "When I get drafted, I'm going to be happy I got drafted. I wouldn't feel comfortable demanding this or that just because . . . I don't know if I'm worth it, or [whether]

AT TRADITIONAL poetry events, poets read their written work aloud. But this weekend, Swarthmore College shows that not all poetry is composed in a written language, or even in a language that can be spoken. "Signing Hands Across the Water" is a sign language poetry festival featuring American and British poets who express themselves through movement rather than by speaking. The festival is the work of Rachel Sutton-Spence, a reader in Deaf Studies at Britain's Bristol University and a visiting professor at Swarthmore this year.

When Melody Frink was a child, she thought the whole world was deaf and everybody knew sign language. One of 11 children in an all-deaf family, she signed to people in stores, on the streets, everywhere, until she learned that she actually lived in a hearing world. Now a college student, she is interning at Dow Chemical Co., in Spring House, working alongside hearing people. Yet, bridging the hearing and deaf worlds has not been a problem this summer. Frink wears large chemistry goggles that fail to hide how animated her face is when she signs.

IF YOU were fortunate enough to work with Carolyn Patricia Mack, you could count on some tasty pastry and best wishes for your birthday. "If you knew Carolyn, she was big on birthdays," her family said. And, of course, birthday treats were not confined to fellow workers. She also took care of family and friends with her baking skills because this multitalented woman was also big on family. Carolyn Patricia, called "Cat" by family and friends, a community activist in both Philadelphia and Chicago, and devoted churchwoman, died May 8. She was 64 and lived in Chicago, but had lived for 40 years in Philadelphia.

It was a moment on a flattened futon that would halt and hasten my womanhood at the same time. One that would mangle and straighten an unformed soul in ways incomprehensible still. It was 3 a.m. in the summer of 1996. A cube-sized hallway in a twin home separated my temporary bedroom from one where my mother slept. In that larger room had slept my father, too, and it was where, as a kid, I would crawl into bed after a bad dream about a shark or a monster. I heard footsteps and stirred.

With a flick of his wrist, the interpreter at the front of the courtroom mimed the bang of a judge's gavel, his other hand pointing to the ceiling. The crude gestures were meant to convey that the case against Juan Jose Gonzalez Luna would be heard in a higher-level court. Gonzalez's face, however, remained vacant. Did the 42-year-old - who is deaf, mute, and illiterate, including no known knowledge of sign language - understand what had just happened? As Gonzalez has next to no language skills, his case has baffled Montgomery County courts since his arrest on drug trafficking charges late last year.

IRESPECTFULLY take issue with Dom Giordano's position on the increasing use of ASL in high school and college classes as a "foreign" language. His argument of what constitutes "foreign" uses a narrow definition. If it's terminology that he takes issue with, note that many universities and schools categorize second languages as world languages or languages other than English so as to be inclusive, not exclusive, of the linguistic and cultural opportunities of that which might not be "foreign.

RE DOM Giordano's op-ed on American Sign Language: Running it was like publishing an article by a neo-Nazi degrading Hebrew and Jewish culture, or like publishing an author who openly condones genocide. As a deaf person, what I got from reading this article is that I'm less human and I need to be fixed medically, therefore my language and culture is inferior and it's acceptable to wipe it out through cultural genocide. Tim Riker, Sacramento, Calif.

EVEN AFTER the mayor backtracked yesterday, it's hard to imagine a dumber move than trying to take the "Christmas" out of the Christmas Village market at Dilworth Plaza - at least once it was already there. Anyone who knows about the cable-TV/talk- radio crusade against an alleged secular-Jewish-Muslim-atheist "War on Christmas" could have told Managing Director Richard Negrin that the picture of workers removing the word "Christmas" from the sign was guaranteed to go viral. And so it did, stirring up an unnecessary controversy wrapped up in lots of misunderstanding and divisiveness.

Toward the end of lunch, Phoenix Ferragame, 17 months old, raised both hands in front of his chest and tapped his fingertips together. His mother smiled. "You want more ? More chips?" Gina Ferragame asked, mimicking the hand movement and then passing the bowl to her son. For parents, hardly anything is as satisfying as being able to communicate with their children. But speech requires development of three muscle groups. Toddlers typically have motor control of their hands and fingers months sooner.

SHAKUWRAH Muhammad's 4-year old nephew was told that his favorite auntie is now in the sky. "He said, 'Well, let's get a firetruck and a long ladder to get her,' " said Muhammad's mother, Marcia Butler. He was told that she was beyond the ladder's reach. "Well, let's just get a rocket ship," Butler recalled her grandson saying. Muhammad, 18, who graduated from Central High School this month and had dreams of becoming a forensic scientist, was killed Saturday night, the victim of a stray bullet in West Oak Lane.