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 _ (Continue on the next page) The Power of ASL 3 Fall 2018 – Issue 11