This is my life as much as a I can remember about me finding out I needed glasses, and what happened after.
As long as I could remember, I’d had to make/force my eyes to focus on close things. Distance was the same way, but it wasn’t as blurry as close things were. I was used to doing it, so I thought it was normal. I didn’t know I had a vision problem until I put on my Dad’s glasses.
I was 12 or 13. A pair of my Dad’s glasses were sitting on the table in my parents’ bedroom. I put them on. Faraway was clear. Then I looked through the bottom. Close things were really clear. It took me a little while to realize I wasn’t straining anymore. I tried to make my vision blurry. I couldn’t do it. As long as I looked through the top for distance, and used the bottom for seeing close, my vision was great. When I did the reverse of that, everything was blurry. His glasses were cool. I had them on for a while. When I took them off, I couldn’t focus. I tried as hard as I could. Distance was a little blurry, but anything close was just a blur. I thought I ruined my eyes. I was really scared. A few minutes later I could focus again. I was relieved my vision went back to normal. At least it was normal for me. I experimented for a while. Every time I put on his glasses, it took me a little while to be able to focus again. It was like they took over for a while. I had wondered what it was like to need glasses. Now I knew. They didn’t look like they had a lot of power, but they made a really big difference. The lenses made things a little bigger, and a lot clearer. I would wear them whenever I could. One time my Dad left them in an unusual place, so I took that chance to “permanently borrow” them. He had other pairs. It wasn’t like I took his only ones. He thought he’d lost them. That worked out good for me. He was a machinist. One pair he wore a lot more often than the others. He used them in the shop. I didn’t know why, but he liked those better. I kept his glasses in my room. My room was in the basement. If I heard someone coming down the stairs I would take them off. I should have just put them on when I was doing my homework, and let my Dad ask me why I was wearing them. He would have taken me to get glasses and it would have been over with, but I was a stupid kid. I guess I was embarrassed that I needed glasses. I tried my Dad’s shop glasses. Now I knew why he liked them. I could hold things closer and things still stayed in focus. They were more comfortable is the best way I can explain it. I don’t remember if I asked, or I heard him telling someone the difference between them. The bifocal segment of one pair was for a distance of 16-20 inches, and the bifocal segment of the other pair was for a distance of 12-16 inches. I put them side by side to figure out the difference. The distance power was the same, but the reading segment of one pair had more power, so I knew the more power the lenses had, the closer they focused. That’s why the distance part had some power, and the reading had more. I did a measurement with a ruler. The measurement was about an inch off. The sweet spot was 19" and 15" for me. That was pretty close. I knew less than nothing about glasses. The only thing I knew was I liked them. I thought that measurement would be the same for everyone. What I didn’t understand was why someone that had lenses that made things smaller, would see better. Almost all the kids in school had those types of glasses. I started paying attention to the other kids that had glasses. It wasn’t long after I got my Dad’s glasses that I asked a kid that had minus lenses what it was like to wear them. He said they made things smaller and clearer. Why would smaller be better? They would squint and complain they couldn’t see the blackboard. They would eventually come in with new glasses. I could tell the lenses had even more power. It was usually a decent jump. I knew the minus lenses helped, but it didn’t make any sense to me why. Before I found out I needed glasses, a kid got bifocals that rode on the same bus as me. He said he got glasses because he was crying. I wasn’t paying attention to glasses yet, but I think they were close to my prescription. I think what he meant was his eyes would water if he didn’t wear his glasses. I had never heard of that.
As I was getting older, I was definitely getting used to wearing glasses. I could do without them, but it was getting harder. I almost got caught a few times wearing them when I had my stereo on. I almost told my parents a few times that I needed glasses, when I was in a bad mood, but I didn’t. I found the prescription card for the glasses I had. Both eyes were the same. +1.00 Add +1.50. I didn’t know what the numbers meant at the time.
It was 1972. I was 17 and in High School. I had become friends with an optician. I told him that I’d been wearing my Dad’s glasses. I wanted to get my own. I didn’t go into detail about how I got them. Now that I had made the decision to get glasses, I was pretty excited about getting them. My friend worked in a Montgomery Wards department store. He set up an appointment for me to get an eye exam. It was on the other side of town, about 30 miles away. I was going to take my Dad’s glasses, but I was in a rush and forgot them.
The doctor asked me if I wore glasses. He was in his 60’s. Since they weren’t really mine, I told him no. I had left them at home anyway. He did my distance prescription. Then he acted like he was done. I asked him to check my reading. That’s why I needed glasses. He reluctantly put up the reading chart. I told him it was blurry. I had to strain to read it. He told me my vision wouldn’t get any better. I told him I could see fine with my Dad’s glasses. He did not like that at all. I didn’t tell him I had been wearing them for 5 years. He probably would have exploded. He told me not to wear them. It was like I was pulling the skin off his back to get a reading prescription. I wonder if he would have liked not having his reading add? He doesn’t have to look through my lenses, I did. I got into an argument with him. He just wanted me to leave. He only gave me a +1.00 distance prescription. I was pissed. If I’d had my Dad’s glasses with me, I would put them on right then. My friend said this had happened before. The doctor was set in his ways. My friend told me to go somewhere else to get glasses. I shouldn’t have a problem getting bifocals. I was going to give him my Dad’s prescription to get glasses, but I didn’t think he would do it.
To be continued -
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