I knew before I graduated from public school that I was attracted to girls who wore glasses. I don’t know why this was, and I really didn’t waste much time trying to figure out the reasons. I think that part of my fondness for girls who wore glasses might have been because of my first grade teacher, who was a very attractive young lady just out of teacher’s college. Miss Barnes wore glasses that seemed to be pretty thick because they had flat fronts and the lenses stuck out behind the frame quite a bit and I found myself staring at her and her glasses all through first grade.
My fondness for glasses wearing girls continued as I grew older. When I graduated from Junior High, my date for the prom was Shelly Jacobs and it was no coincidence that Shelly wore the thickest glasses in the whole school. I had worked on Shelly for almost 2 years to get a chance to take her out, but her parents would not let her date until she was 16. But they did allow her to have a date for the prom, and Shelly was more than willing to allow me to escort her. We had a good time that night, and I found Shelly to be more than attractive enough for me. I managed to date Shelly a few more times over the summer but by the time we returned to school in the fall I realized a very important thing. Her glasses might have been drawing me to her, but the person who wore the glasses had to have something more than a pair of glasses in order for me to stick around.
The year I was in grade 10 Helen Klein was in grade 12. Her sister Nancy was a year behind her and both of the Klein sisters wore glasses. Helen’s appeared to be fairly strong, because there was a decent amount of cut in, and the lenses looked to be thicker than most other girls. Nancy’s glasses did look to be weaker than Helens, but I really couldn’t be sure just how much weaker they were. But having a couple of pretty glasses wearing girls around the school was enough for me and I went out of my way to be friendly towards both Helen and Nancy. By the time the fall fair came around in late October both Helen and Nancy knew me by name and when I saw them with the rest of their family at the fairgrounds after the parade they introduced me to their 2 younger sisters, their brother and their parents. I was a little surprised. Mr. and Mrs. Klein did not wear glasses but every one of their children did.
Cathy Klein was a little over a year younger than Nancy and Nancy was only a couple of months older than I was. That meant that Cathy was right at the point where she would be perfect age for me to date. Her younger sister Christina was about 18 months younger than Cathy and would have been in an acceptable age group as well, but I didn’t think I was interested in dating a 13 year old, even though Crissi was darned cute and appeared to have at least, or maybe even a stronger prescription than Cathy had. Billy, their brother was about 11, and while he also wore glasses, the lenses in them appeared to be barely strong enough to qualify for full time wear.
I spent the next few years dating Cathy, and when I was 22 and Cathy was 21 we were married in a low key ceremony at her church. We only had about 100 people at our reception and dance, and it was more like a party that a wedding. Nancy, Cathy and Chrissi had all gotten contact lenses a year or so before our wedding and while I wasn’t happy about that, I knew better than to say anything. At least now I knew from the contact lens packages that Cathy needed -5.50D contacts for each eye. I had also found out by listening to Cathy and her two sisters talking that Chrissi had -8.00D contacts while Nancy wore -7.00D contacts. By the time of our wedding Helen and Jim had been married for 3 years and I wished that Cathy had been more like Helen, because Helen still wore glasses that to me appeared to be a perfect prescription. I was not sure what Helen’s prescription was, but I had heard her sisters talking about the fact that Helen was over -10D now. Billy was 17 by now, and still wore glasses which looked to be about the same strength as Cathy’s did – not that she wore them much.
The years rolled by and everyone grew older. Cathy and I had 3 children. Our oldest was a boy, who was followed by 2 girls. Clark, Bonnie and Shannon all wore glasses by the time they were 12. Of course, through Cathy’s urging, both Bonnie and Shannon were wearing contacts by the time they were each 16. I knew that by the time they left to go to university that both my daughters had reached a prescription of around -10D for their contacts, and it was quite disappointing to me that I had not seen either of them wearing glasses for ages. Helen and Jim had a girl and a boy and their daughter Brittany wore much stronger glasses than Helen did. Nancy had a boy and 2 girls, and Chrissi had 3 girls, all of whom wore reasonably strong glasses whenever they were not wearing contacts. Billy had married a girl who also wore glasses, and it was no surprise when both of his daughters ended up wearing glasses as well. There was something in the Klein families’ genetic makeups that lead to myopia in the offspring.
Nancy was the first one to have her eyes lasered. She had been having trouble seeing up close when she was wearing contact lenses so she started off wearing reading glasses when she was at work at the bank. Then she started to have problems with her contact lenses. A coworker of hers had done the laser eye surgery a year earlier and she was thrilled with the outcome so Nancy just had to have her eyes fixed. Unfortunately for me, Nancy also had a successful outcome and by the time our 30th wedding anniversary rolled around Cathy also had the laser surgery. I used every argument I could and I came awfully close to revealing the fact that it was her glasses that attracted me to her in the first place. It is probably just as well that I didn’t let my secret come out, because I honestly don’t think it would have made any difference and might have hurt our marriage.
I was worried that Bonnie and Shannon would go for this same surgery, and I was extremely happy when I found out from Cathy that they had both been rejected because their prescriptions were just over the limit to have the surgery done. Apparently Bonnie was now at -12.50D and Shannon was -14.25D. I wasn’t sure where they would have come up with the money anyway, because they both had 3 year old daughters by now, and neither of their husbands were raking in the dough. They were all working, and they were all earning a reasonable wage but both my daughters had taken a year off work for their maternity leave. Even though Cathy was taking care of our granddaughters for them I couldn’t see where either family could have spared the $2,500.00 that a good laser clinic would have charged. And the new implantable contact lenses were even more expensive so I had hopes that it would be quite a while before either of my daughters had their eyes fixed.
Both of my daughters were now wearing their glasses whenever they came by to drop off their daughters. For some reason neither of them had gone back to wearing contact lenses after they had children. I wondered if it was because they spent a lot of time with their cousin Brittany, Helen’s daughter, who wore glasses that were pretty close to -20D. Brit had never worn contacts and she had snagged a really great guy. Jeff did not wear glasses , was very good looking, made a ton of money, and treated Brit like a queen. They had 2 kids, a boy and a girl who both were wearing fairly strong glasses at the age of 8 and 6 respectively. There was no sign of the Klein family myopia slowing down or stopping with the birth of future generations. Indeed, it appeared that the opposite was going to happen.
The Klein family had a reunion that was held in July every year on the farm that Mr. Klein had been farming for years. As my father in law got older and closer to retirement age Billy took over the farm and my in laws moved to a house in town. Billy and his wife continued hosting the family reunion on the farm though and it made my day every year to see all of the grandchildren wearing their glasses as they splashed around the pool that Billy had put in. My wife’s youngest sister, Chrissi had gone to see if she could have her eyes lasered at the same time Nancy and Cathy had but Chrissi had gotten quite a bit more nearsighted over the years and her prescription was far too strong for any form of surgery. I knew that Helen had recently gotten new glasses that had a prescription of -15D, and while I could not tell how strong Crissi’s glasses were I knew that they were far stronger than Helen’s were. Crissi’s glasses looked to be even stronger than Helen’s daughter Brittany’s were, and I knew Brit was right around -20D. Crissi had been forced to give up wearing her contacts around the time that Cathy had her eyes operated on, and when she started being seen in glasses again I could tell from the thickness of the lenses and the massive amount of cut in that her eyes had gotten a lot worse during her years of contact lens wear. And her prescription had continued climbing as the years went by.
Crissi and Robert had 3 daughters, and all three girls had gotten glasses when they were quite young – likely before they even went to school. Carol and Janet both wore glasses that looked pretty darned strong – maybe around the same power as my own daughter Shannon, their first cousin, who now had an -18.50D prescription. Their younger sister Melanie had always had by far the strongest glasses of anyone else at the family reunion. She wore myodiscs, and had done so for about the past 10 years. Her daughter Crystal had taken after her mom, and at only 12 years of age Crystal also wore myodiscs for the lenses in her glasses. Out of the 10 great grandchildren that Mr. and Mrs. Klein had Crystal was the one with the strongest prescription.
I hated the fact that Cathy had gone for that eye surgery a few years back. Now she had to wear reading glasses to see anything up close, and while her old -6D prescription would not have looked very strong at least she could have taken them off to read. But then, come to think of it, I never saw Cathy wearing anything but contacts for years before she had the surgery and I suspect that her prescription might have been much higher than the -6.00D she had when she first got contacts. She couldn’t have reached much more than a -10D, because that has pretty much been the safe level for laser for many years. She and her sister Nancy along with my mother and father in law are pretty much the only ones who do not need glasses – except for reading that is.
The amount of myopia that is in the Klein family is likely what had kept me hanging around for all these years. I might not be able to look at my wife wearing glasses, but I sure have enjoyed looking at her sisters Helen and Crissi as their glasses got stronger and thicker. And to see all the myopia in the offspring has also been a thrill for me.
I still don’t understand what it possibly could have been that causes 2 people with very good eyesight to produce so many children that were myopic. And there have been a few males that married into the family, such as Jim and myself as well as Jeff who married Jim’s daughter Brit that did not wear glasses. But our wives must all have had the gene for myopia, because our children all turned out quite nearsighted, even more so than their mothers. Crissi’s husband Robert did wear glasses that were a fairly weak minus of around -5D or so. Two of their daughters had fairly strong prescriptions and Melanie their third daughter was off the wall myopic. As well, Melanie’s daughter Crystal was even more myopic than Melanie had been at her age.
Even though I have never been able to figure out why this family was so inclined to be myopic, I was still quite satisfied that the myopia was all in the family.
Specs4ever September 2014.
https://vision-and-spex.com/all-the-myopia-in-one-family-t765.html