I’ve been pretty fortunate to have good eyesight most of my life. I never had to wear glasses growing up. I was well into my sixties before I realized that I needed glasses if I were going to pass the California Driver’s License eye test. I wound up needing bifocals.
At first, my optician suggested I try the “progressive” lenses, rather than the ones with lines. That way, people might not notice that I was old enough to need bifocals. But I gave those up after only a week. I could never find the sweet spot. I was walking around bobbing my head like a pigeon. And besides, the actual corrective portion of the progressive lens only runs down the middle third. So, there was no peripheral vision. While driving, I had to turn my head completely around like an owl in order to see if there was a car in my blind spot. So, I exchanged them for the old fashioned “line” kind. If they were good enough for Ben Franklin, they were good enough for me.
Mostly I just wore my glasses when driving or reading. I actually never mastered the art of walking while wearing bifocals – especially on my Mexican village’s cobblestone streets. It’s hard to look down so I don’t step in horse poop, while also looking ahead for oncoming cars driving the wrong way down my one-way street. Personally, I don’t think Ben Franklin ever mastered walking with bifocals either. There’s a famous painting of him arriving in Philadelphia sitting in a sedan chair carried by four stout porters. Sure beats walking. Unfortunately, Uber doesn’t offer that service here in Mexico.
As for my bifocals, a few years ago, I had cataract surgery which greatly improved my vision. I still have bifocals, but I seldom actually need them. I can read, watch TV, and drive without them. Mostly, I just carry the glasses in my shirt pocket because my California license still says I need “corrective lenses.” I figured I’d better at least have them with me in case of a traffic stop. Oddly enough, my Mexican license has no such restriction. That’s because there is no eye test required in Mexico. They required a test for blood type, and they asked if I was willing to be an organ donor. But no eye test. Apparently, if I get in an accident, they don’t care if I was driving while “legally blind.” They just want to know how soon they can harvest my kidneys after they run out of type “O-positive” blood.
I go back to California twice a year for doctor’s appointments. I still have a house in Orange County where my younger daughter lives. She had LASIK eye surgery years ago, but apparently still needs glasses for reading. But she never seems to have them with her when she needs them. Recently, we were in a restaurant, and I lent her my bifocals so she could read the menu. She immediately complained, “How can you see through these things. They’re filthy.” With great fanfare, she proceeded to clean them. I could hardly bring myself to admit that they hadn’t been cleaned since she’d borrowed them during my last visit, six months earlier.
What I can’t figure out is how my glasses get dirty just sitting in my shirt pocket. Worse yet, my daughter pointed out that my lenses weren’t just dirty, they were scratched. I can’t imagine how that happened. I always thought that the only thing that could scratch glass was a diamond. I assure you I don’t have a shirt pocket full of diamonds. All I have in there is a paper notebook and a plastic pen. Can you keep a secret? I keep all the diamonds in my pants pocket.
What was even more annoying was when I brought the glasses back to my optician and asked to have the scratches buffed out; he said it couldn’t be done. It would change the prescription. His only solution was for me to spring $250 for a new set of lenses. And don’t even get me started on how much new frames would cost. Somehow, you can buy dime store reading glasses for $10 a pair – frames and all. But no optician will put your prescription lenses into one of those dime store frames.
If Ben Franklin had to pay his optician what I will need to pay for new glasses, he would never have been able to invent bifocals. For that matter, if he were here, and tried to find four stout men to schlep him around in a sedan chair, they would probably tell him to go fly a kite. Ah, but that’s another story.
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