SASL Newsletter - Fall 2018 Issue Issue 11 - Fall 2018 | Page 3

know how exactly, but somehow he rigged it up so that the iron was suspended from the ceiling
from a string that was attached to a wind up clock. So that when the alarm would go off, it would
release the string and the iron would then hit the floor with such a force that it shook the whole
house. All the neighbors for miles around relied on that flat iron dropping to get them out of bed
every morning. Well, one day the man got married. He and his bride went away on their
honeymoon and were gone for three days. When they came back home, lo and behold they had
found that no one had worked the mines for three days. The whole town was still asleep just
waiting for that flat iron to drop! (Rutherford, 1993, p. 138)
ASL Video: The Deaf Miner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqpLbfuxiCY
Source: San Francisco Library, 1984
English Translation: The Coal Miner
Far away, deep in the mountains, there was a small village where a deaf man lived. He was a
coal miner. He worked deep in a cave, digging for coal. The coal he mined was used to create
electricity and heat and to power steam trains, etc. The deaf man had one problem. He had to
go to work early in the morning, but had trouble waking himself up in the morning. He was
supposed to arrive at work promptly, at five o’clock in the morning but there wasn’t an alarm
system developed for the deaf yet. He struggled to wake up on his own. The coal miner’s
neighbor was a great man. The two of them sat down to discuss how they might work together
to help the coal miner wake up. The neighbor suggested an idea. Their houses were right next
to each other so the neighbor would set his alarm clock that had a rope tied to it. The long rope
would run between the two men’s houses and go through the bedroom window and the deaf
miner would tie the rope to his foot. Every morning, when his alarm went off, the neighbor pulled
the rope that ran between the two houses and it would awaken the coal miner. This went on for
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The Power of ASL
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Fall 2018 – Issue 11