Silent Partners

George Mangum had no trouble spinning the giant wheel. Or figuring out the hidden answer, for that matter.

But when it came time to tell emcee Pat Sajak what vowel he wanted to buy, he relied on his old friend--and impromptu sign language interpreter--Darren Galarza.

In a show airing tonight, the Ventura County pair will make “Wheel of Fortune” history as the first hearing-impaired contestant and interpreter to appear on the popular game show.

On the show, they consulted in sign language, then Galarza would tell Sajak they wanted an “E.” Mangum spun the wheel most times--except for the one time he let Galarza take a spin and it landed them on “bankrupt.”

It was, Mangum signs in his Oxnard living room, a “puny” spin that cost the two Point Mugu photographers $23,000.

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Galarza, who lives in Fillmore, never expected to become fluent in sign language. He didn’t even know anyone with a hearing impairment.

But settling in during his first day on the job at the Point Mugu Navy base eight years ago, he noticed he was sitting across from Mangum.

A new co-worker wasn’t a novelty. What was new was the realization that the co-worker he would look at and work with eight hours a day was deaf and didn’t speak. Most families don’t spend that much time together.

At first, the two men smiled, nodded and passed notes on a need-to-know basis. Their jobs as photographers for the Naval Air Warfare Center required them to communicate.

“Back then, the only thing I spoke was English and a little Spanish,” Galarza recalls. “But I finally figured out that if I didn’t learn sign language, here we’d be, six, 10 years--who knows?--sitting across from each other, passing notes.”

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Mangum himself didn’t push his co-worker to learn his silent language because, after all, it’s a hearing world and “most people never bother, except maybe to learn a few words,” he says.

But when Galarza expressed an interest, an ad hoc language school began during lunch hours and breaks: one teacher, one student, no formal curriculum. Galarza would write a word he wanted to know the sign for; Mangum would demonstrate the sign.

By year’s end, the two men could not only hold long conversations and tell wry jokes in sign language, they’d become good friends.

Years later, they still sit across from each other at work--and are even better friends. Mangum will even go so far as to say, through his interpreter Galarza, that Galarza’s signing “has gotten a little better” over the years.

Galarza signs back that Mangum’s grammar has also improved since they began signing together. The two like to kid around, and Mangum especially enjoys signing mock insults about Galarza, which Galarza is then obliged to translate.

All kidding aside, the friendship has enriched both men. “And learning sign language has only been a benefit to me,” Galarza says seriously.

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When Mangum read a classified ad about “Best Friends Week” on “Wheel of Fortune” a few months ago, he naturally thought of Galarza.

He remembered his pal’s penchant for crosswords. He had also watched the show himself, since it’s more visual than many game shows. Mangum has closed-captioned TV, and he says it’s similar to watching a foreign movie with subtitles.

The friends applied to be contestants, were eventually accepted and competed on the quiz show, getting to meet Sajak and hostess Vanna White.

While they didn’t win enough to retire, they took home a nice $3,250 holiday bonus, which they split.

“We were in it for the money, but we still had fun,” Galarza says.

Mangum takes his friend in a mock headlock and chides him for the spin that cost them a bundle.

Sitting in Mangum’s Oxnard home, Galarza does simultaneous verbal translation. Mangum’s wife, Brenda, also deaf, follows the repartee between the two kidders with amusement.

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Although not a zealot about it, Mangum likes using the word “deaf,” not the more politically correct “hearing-impaired,” to describe his condition. He does, however, become impassioned about the few people who still say “mute” or “dumb.”

The Mangums have made many adaptations in their lives to accommodate their lack of hearing.

For instance, the family’s Alaskan husky, Siby, shows no response to the spoken command “shake.” But when Mangum points his finger at Siby’s paw, the dog will shake paws with the best of them. Siby has been trained to run to his owners and dance for attention if he senses strange goings-on around the house.

The house is also rigged up to help its owners. If the doorbell rings, a light in every room flashes. If the phone rings, the lights also flash, but in a different sequence.

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The phone has TDD, a telecommunications device for the deaf, which allows George’s friend Darren to talk with a special operator, who types the message into a computer. The message then appears on a small screen; Mangum can type his responses back in return.

In the bedroom, a regular clock radio with an alarm is connected to a bedside lamp that flashes when it’s time to get up.

Mangum was born to hearing parents, but his mother contracted measles while pregnant, which rendered him deaf. He attended a school for the deaf in Riverside.

The Mangums have two teenage daughters, Jenna and Greta, who hear perfectly and also sign as if they were born to it, which they were.

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When the girls were babies, more flashing lights would alert their parents to their cries in the night.

When asked if they feel different from their friends because their parents don’t speak, they shrug and smile. “We never knew anything different,” says Greta.

Mangum sees some advantages to a noise-free world: “I can concentrate better, without outside noises distracting me. I don’t have to listen to office gossip.”

He can’t hear the angry voices of people arguing or the screeching of tires in traffic. He believes his vision is more highly developed, in the way that blind people’s hearing abilities are more refined.

The biggest problem, says Mangum, “is at work, when the food truck comes around at break time, ringing its bell, and no one remembers to let me know it’s out there.”