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| Modern Shuron Ronwinne Glasses (http://www.eyeglasses.com) - very similar to the first glasses I wore 50+ years ago |
I'm not certain when it became apparent that my eyesight was very poor, probably shortly after I entered first grade. I'm sure it was obvious the very first day that I could not read the black boards, maps, or charts hanging on the classroom walls even from the front row of desks. Not knowing what things were supposed to look like, I had no frame of reference. I vaguely remember bringing home a note from the teacher that set me on the path toward glasses.
Mommy wore thick glasses all her life and could not function well without them. Daddy and Grammy had only reading glasses. Daddy and Mommy drove me to Eastland, the closest city of 2,500 people, for an appointment with an eye doctor who had a nice office in a two-story house near the end of Main Street. The disappointing waiting room did not have comic books (not allowed at home) or other amusements for children we found at our "regular" doctor's office or the dentist's office. And we did not get any slips to take to the drug store soda fountain for ice cream after our appointments.
Dr. Nelson was an optometrist, the only one for many miles. He had a very good business from the surrounding community. He became our family eye doctor and made lots of money serving our nearsighted family during the next 10 years. Clarence and Valerie, as we later found out, were just as nearsighted as I was.
Dr. Nelson asked me to sit in a big black chair high off the floor. He peered into my large pretty, though imperfect, green eyes and asked me questions about what I saw on the chart hanging on the wall in front of me. But I could barely make out the blotch of white on the wall and certainly had no hope of identifying anything on it.
Although I had just started first grade, I did know at least some of the alphabet and how to print my name, but the chart on the wall that he used had a series of capital Es. He asked me to tell him which way the arms of the various sized Es pointed and to point in that direction - up, down, right, or left - with my finger. I could not see even the largest Es.
Then Dr. Nelson pulled a large piece of equipment hanging above my head down in front of my face. I have since learned that the instrument is a phoropter, very similar in appearance to the equipment used by optometrists today. He asked me to put my face up against the device and look through the two eye holes. Then he began to flip lens with clicking noises back and forth over the holes through which I was looking.
It was pure magic. The white chart he had asked me about suddenly appeared on the wall, blurry at first but much more plainly visible. He covered each eye individually in turn while he adjusted the strength of the clear glass lens for the seeing eye. Then he tested my vision looking through both lenses simultaneously, asking me to "read" the chart and to tell him which combination of lenses gave me the sharpest image of the chart on the wall. After many minutes of clicking and testing, he showed me what I would see with my new glasses.
Then Dr. Nelson measured my face with a small ruler. We picked out a frame with wire rims that hugged the back of my ears so that my glasses wouldn't fall off if I were playing or running. Since I have a small bridge on my nose, I had to have nose pads. He warned me that I might have to get used to wearing my glasses and that if they were too tight, either side of my nose might get red and sore.
We had to wait several days for the glasses to be made. Then we drove back to Eastland to get my glasses at Dr. Nelson's office and to have them adjusted to fit my face. Again I sat in his big black chair while he checked my vision wearing my new glasses.
I remember stepping out of Dr. Nelson's office into a whole new world. Everything was lighter and brighter and distinct. I looked in amazement at the vivid colors and clear shapes far down the street. We took the back road home among the fields and farms, the washboard road we called it because part of it was very undulating sandy river bottom land, bumpy like the scrub board Mommy used for washing our clothes.
I sat in the back seat, looking out the right window. I saw the rendering (dead animals) and the feed processing plants clearly for the first time on the north side of Eastland, the ones that spewed out smelly smoke, covering the north end of town with a stench when the wind was blowing from the north.
For nine miles, I rode on a road I had traveled many, many times before but had never seen. Eyes wide behind my thick new glasses, I drank in the sight of individual cows in the fields, the leaves on the trees we passed by, the single posts and strands of barbed wire of the fences on either side of the road, and the corn stalks standing tall in the fields. I can still remember the wonder and absolute joy in my heart, the amazement at how much I had been missing, and the gratitude for the wondrously simple thing that had made such a transformation in my life possible.
I wore my glasses continuously. I do not recall ever being sad that I needed to wear them or of anyone calling me "four eyes". I would have worn them to bed at night except that sleeping with them would have quickly knocked them out of alignment. Taking my glasses off was the last thing I did each night and putting them on, the first thing each morning.
I took my glasses off on only a few special occasions. I learned that when I wanted to concentrate on music or a speech or a sermon, I could focus better on the sound by blurring my vision. At Christmas, I enjoyed looking at the multi-colored lights on the Christmas tree that appeared blurry and gorgeous without my glasses, the lights all blended together in a darkened room, its own special kind of beauty.
And of course, I took my glasses off each time I went to Dr. Nelson's office to have them readjusted. We were frequent visitors but he never charged us for adjustments. He knew we would be back every year or two for new glasses as my eyes continued to change, usually for the worse.
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