Cover next page > title: Seeing Language in Sign : The Work of William C. Stokoe author

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Page could get them to shoot farther. He learned to fence in college later he learned to fly he became a licensed ham radio operator.
He explains to anyone who will listen how bagpipes work. He writes poetry.
Humphries sees curiosity as a major motivator for Stokoe. "The thing that made it possible for Bill to do this work when few others would even think about it was the thing that sometimes led him a little astray. He really does like to explore ideas and theories that seem far out, and sometimes they turnout to be just that. Luckily for us, his theories about ASL were far out but not far off" 10
Stokoe believes that his upbringing, perhaps more than anything else, is responsible for what he has accomplished. He was profoundly influenced by his parents, particularly his father, who instilled in him a respect for hard work and for learning.
Although William C. Stokoe, Sr. (who was called Clarence, was a farmer, he had graduated from Cornell University in his twenties and later, during World War II, he taught courses in agriculture. Bill Stokoe's parents taught him to read when he was three, "lying on my stomach on the living room floor with a book in front of me, spelling out a hard word to my mother or father, who pronounced it and told me what it meant" But Bill was also required to help with the chores his father "had the greatest contempt for people who couldn't do a day's work in a day.""11
Furthermore, Stokoe's father instilled in him a respect for others. Bill Stokoe has never forgotten the following incident:
I was probably in my mid-thirties when I was driving one day with my father from Auburn to Aurora New York. Just beside the road there was a rundown farmhouse that looked as if it might never have been painted or repaired. The barn was even more dilapidated. There was a dog or two around, and there were farm implements rusting in the yard and on the porch. I had a PhD. from Cornell. I thought I was really something, so I pointed out to my father that here was a perfect example of life imitating art. It was a scene right out of Li'l Abner.
Dad didn't react that way to it at all. What he saw was a

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