scouts and sign language

well, since i have been so lazy posting these last few weeks i thought i would take some time to let you know about a couple of things that has taken place since then. my son and i joined the cub scouts (well. my son joined and since i am his dad then in effect i have "joined" also). he is in 1st grade, so he is a Tiger Cub. at our first "real" meeting we found out what den we were in and who our den leader was. we found out that we are in den #12, cool! after all of the den's had gone back to there rooms to meet our group and another group were just sitting there waiting on instructions. one of the "higher ups" in the cub scout organization came over and said, "the reason you guys did not go back is because you do not have a leader... we had LOTS of boys sign up for scouts but not enough leaders." so, she said that we could take turns being leaders for one month if nobody wanted/could be the den leader all the time. i looked at all of the guys there and i said, "hey, let's take turns being a leader and then none of us have to do this but a couple month's out of the year!" well, that was the wrong thing to do, because i spoke up and took the initiative to get this party started, then all of the men there looked at me for leadership. i did not want to be a leader, my son had asked me twice to be the den leader and i told him that i couldn't. after 30 minutes of all of us sitting there looking stupid and everybody saying, "i can't be the leader", i finally get tired of everybody not having any balls and volunteering. so, i say, "i will be the den leader" and the rest is history. after getting to know some of the cubs in my den, i find out that one of them has a hearing impairment. well, about a month ago i had started trying to teach myself some sign language just because i have always wanted to learn it. at first i am excited because that means i might have somebody practice my sign language on and then the mother tells me that they don't use sign language. she says that his speech teacher uses it, but at home they don't use it. at home he lip reads and can hear a little out of one ear. i have to confess that it kind of pisses me off that this family doesn't use ASL with him at home. basically he has to lip read and they have to talk really loud. as a result of this hearing impairment he is having to repeat the first grade. knowing this made me even more upset that the parents haven't taken the time to learn/use sign language. i feel sorry for this boy, i hate that he is suffering because of the laziness of his parents. my heart hurts for him. self-teaching myself sign language has been quite successful! i already known the entire alphabet, i can sign the "happy birthday song", i know about 50 different signs and several phrases. i found a great dvd from netflix that we rented and there are more on our list that will come as we return the others. i don't know if it is becuase i am a very visual person, but i am finding sign easy to learn. i tried teaching myself spanish for many years and never made this kind of progress even though i spent more time trying to learn spanish. so, now i am a den leader in the cub scouts and so far i have really enjoyed it... mostly because i get to spend time with my son. he loves spending time with me and thanks to my wife the meeting have been a snap (because she prepares the meeting for me and all i have to do is show up and lead it). she is wonderful. wish me luck with my ASL learning and if you know of a good way to self teach let me know. if you know of some good sign language web-sites let me know that also.