Digital subscriptions provided by the City of Gulfport THE GABBER.COM No. 2806
March 30, 2023- April 5, 2023
Journey to Gulfport “You can communicate if you try hard enough,” says Mark A. Smith, Gulfport resident, sitting across the dining room table from his husband, Andrzej Kowalski. And he would know: Since they met in 1994, he has watched Andrzej overcome multiple barriers – linguistic, political, and cultural. Only Son Andrzej was born in Gdynia, Poland, in 1948, only three years after the city had been taken by the Soviets from occupying German forces. As an infant, he suffered an infection which took his hearing. His parents, farmers who had refused to join the Communist Party, were heartbroken to learn that their only son was deaf. His mother would shout out her words to him, as if it would help him hear. “There was a stigma around handicapped children,” says Mark, as Andrzej rapidly signs the words. “They were all called ‘crippled,’ whatever their actual disability might be.” The Kowalskis sent Andrzej – and a younger sister, who was born
AMANDA HAGOOD
By Amanda Hagood
Kowalski and Smith in front of their Gulfport home this past St. Patrick’s Day. “We have lived in Gulfport since 2016,” says Smith, “and we have no regrets!”
deaf – to a school for disabled children. He still keeps up with many of the children, now retirees, that he met there. The school taught them Polish Sign Language and written Polish, as well as trades, including watchmaking and how to make molded plastics. Andrzej picks up a
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white picnic fork lying on the table. “Yes, like that!” nods Mark. Leaving Home After school, Andrzej moved to the nearby city of Gdańsk. He did Journey continued on page 10