The Vanity of Not Wearing Glasses

When I was 18 and having difficulty seeing the pins at the bowling alley I went to the eye doc and he prescribed some groovy glasses.. I think I only wore them once a week when I bowled with my team.. those were fun days. Time passed and Uncle Sam knocked on my door giving me a great invitation to serve my country. So when I was 19 years old, I found myself in need of those glasses again.. the Army made me wear their Olive Drab version when I couldn't hit one of those faraway targets on the rifle range.

Well, I got out of basic training and never again donned those glasses.. they might be still hiding in the basement.. been years since I have seen them. About 10 years later I was tooling along at night on a trip to New Jersey to see my family and I kind of got lost.. yeah I missed a sign.. once again I went to the eye doc and got a new pair of glasses - aviator style.. I looked pretty cool. Of course these frames were only needed for night driving

Eventually I began to wear them whenever I was driving - just to be safe.. I knew I really didn't "need" them. Some time passed and one morning I forgot to take them off as I walked through the front door at work. I sat down at my desk and turned my mainframe computer monitor on.. I looked down and when I looked up I was shocked to see the crispness of the text on the monitor. I began to laugh.. it is humbling to realize that your own vanity has caused you to walk around in a fog.

Ever since that day I have worn glasses full time.. about then years ago I bought a pair of progressive lenses.. also known as no-line trifocals.. it is wild getting old. These days I take them off to watch TV but usually have them on the rest of the time. Guess my vanity has given way to my practicality.

Do folks call you four-eyes? How long have you worn glasses? Any stories?

6 comments:

  1. I have worn glasses since I was 17 (71 or 72). I hate glasses. I can't recall anyone calling four-eyes, even friends in joking or horsing around times. That is strange now that I think about it.

    The worst time I had was when I could no longer read driver license numbers and found out there was such a thing called bi-focals. Yikes!

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  2. I used to have excellent vision. It got poor gradually, so I didn't even notice. When I went to get my drivers license here in Japan, the first thing they made me do was take a vision test. Their test is different here. Basically it is a bunch of C's facing different directions. You tell the examiner which direction the hole is facing.

    I looked into the device, and the examiner asked me which direction the hole was facing, and I said, "What?" I went out to get my wife, because I assumed I was not understanding him, since he was speaking in Japanese. I said, "Interpret for me, because I have no idea what he's talking about." He said the same thing again, and I told her to look in and tell me if she saw a circle. She said yes, and it was then that I realized that my vision was poor. I couldn't even see the circle, much less which side of it was open!

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  3. YOU CRACKED ME UP in the first sentence here! you could not see the pins at the bowling alley so you got groovy glasses!!!! I can so relate to this because I found out how poor my vision I was at age 15 (driver's license eye exam) and got glasses that I wore ONLY when driving and went around not seeing until I got contacts at age 20. Silly us.

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  4. I had horn rimmed glasses in High School. In college got my first pair of contact....worn them ever since. I do need "reading" glasses now for Bible Study for book reading.

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  5. I started wearing reading glasses in college, then switched to wearing them full time. I went to contacts because my glasses kept getting broken while coaching and playing sports. I still wear contacts, but now I have to wear reading glasses again. Fortunately, I can get them for six bucks at Dollar General. :)

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  6. Dark Rims ruined my ability to catch grounders in Center Field during my junior year. When the ball reached the glove I would see the rim and not get the glove on the ball. Tried contacts in my 20s and they hurt and dried out all the time.
    I too enjoy my invisible trifocals.

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