First, a word from my mother: Don't complain. There's always someone who has it worse than you. I know that, so consider this just a short observation rather than a complaint. I will try not to whine. But, the fact of the matter is, my eyes are confused. They can't figure out what they really want or need. I have worn glasses since fifth grade. It became clear that things were unclear when I consistently went outside to play with "that kid dressed in red who stands still a lot and is very quiet." As funny as it was to see me trying to play hide and seek with a fire hydrant, it was also a warning sign. So, my mom took me to see an optometrist. At first, I did not understand how a group of great guys who ate lunch at the Rathskellar every Tuesday could help me with glasses. Then, I caught on...oh, optometrist, not Optimist. Although, I certainly wanted my doctor to be positive about my situation, even if he was a Lion, Elk or Rotarian. After going through a couple of prescriptions in short order, my mom heard about a doctor in the city who had a new way of treating kids needing glasses. He was an ophthalmologist. I hoped there was a lot going on in that extra syllable.

His plan involved giving a kid bifocals...always the province of grandmas and grandpas has far as I knew...and nightly eye-drops. You also needed to take a potion of eye of newt (the animal not the former Speaker of the House) and goat whiskers just as the clock struck midnight. Well, that last part is not exactly true but I did tell it to my friends when I would stay over and have to put the drops in. I'd rather they think I was mixed up in some wierd, other-world remedy than just a skinny dweeb taking eye-drops. After about five years of that regimen, the next step involved contacts. This was back before you could practically by contact lenses out of a vending machine. I went in and got fitted for the hard contacts just before my Sophomore year of high school. Back in my day, we didn't have any of those wimpy little soft, comfortable, different-color-for each-day, contacts. We had HARD contacts...made from HARD plastic...with velcro on one side to hold them in and carpet tacks on the other just to be unpleasant! I was pretty sure my glasses were the only reason my overwhelming handsomeness had gone unappreciated by the girls in my class. I strutted into 10th grade like Burt Reynolds but with less hair everywhere but my head. To my amazement, not wearing glasses made absolutely no impact. Sure, I could see better but who cared about that if the only thing you're seeing are girls either running for cover or pointing and laughing. I wore the same contacts for many years and got the same reaction from females, including my wife, who still can't explain her moment of weakness in agreeing to marry me. (Even now, nearly 20 years after our first meeting, at the family reunion a couple weeks back, some members of her family were urging her to reconsider.) In fact, the ophthalmologist knew his stuff, because I haven't had to change my prescription since that summer before Sophomore year.

That may be changing. A while back, when my daughter went to the optometrist, I tagged along and took an open appointment time since I hadn't had my peepers peeped at in sometime. The doctor couldn't have been nicer or more competent. He said I really didn't need a new prescription but, if he had to predict, within about six months, a man of my age, usually will start to have some trouble. Well, the guy must have gone to Nostradamus U. because almost to the day...six months later...I noticed some minor problems when it came to reading anything smaller than the bold print on a box of Cheerios. So, here's the dilemma: I can still see pretty well with my contacts for driving and seeing faraway stuff but I can't read anything with my contacts in. If I wear my glasses, I can read most things but have to take off the specs completely for some things and hold the paper or book up pretty close...like Columbo at the scene of a crime. My wife wants me to get a pair of those reading glasses from the drug-store but I feel a little self-conscious going in and trying on different strengths. Not to mention the frames question.

My first glasses were called granny-glasses....fairly hip for the times. When I needed to go to the bifocals I had some that were wire-framed but a little larger...kind of like what Allen Ludden wore on Password. Then, I wore some that looked like Phil Donahue's or, was it Sally Jesse Raphael? When I started wearing contacts most of the time, I kept an old pair of glasses, just in case, that highlighted just how thick the lenses were...not a great look. Finally, I got a pair of light-weight, thin-lens, wire rims that make me look almost intelligent but that only lasts until I open my mouth. So, the idea of choosing a frame again makes me uneasy.

Again, I am not complaining. In fact, now that I think about it, as I get older and have a sense of how the rest of me...besides my eyes...is aging, it is probably a blessing that things are a little fuzzy around the edges. Let's see, no pun intended, get new glasses so everything is in sharp, perfect focus which would require losing some weight and getting in shape, so as to avoid daily nausea, or let things be a bit blurry and look okay, as is. Sounds acceptable to me. Pass the Cheetos and buy that big screen TV.