I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s as I was born in 1959. The first time I remember hearing anything about having my eyes checked was in the 2nd or 3rd grade which would have been around 67 or 68. I failed the school hearing test and was sent for a check. It was only wax and easily fixed. My Mom said she wanted to have my eyes checked while I was at the Dr. Back then the Dr. was an eye, ear, nose and throat Dr. This same Dr. had taken my tonsils out before I even started school. Problem was the appointment was on Saturday and for some reason the office didn’t do eye exams that day. My Mom would mention on occasions getting my eyes checked but never did relying on the school checks. I would complain of headaches and she said maybe you need glasses. In the 6th grade around 72 the eye test consisted of pointing which way the E faced. I couldn’t see the last one so I guessed and must have been close enough. I did see they wrote down 20/20 R and 20/30 L. Back then you went from Elementary to Jr. High for 7th grade. We did not have a vision screening in the 7th grade. In the summer of 73 between 7th and 8th grade I finally got the courage to tell my Mom I thought I needed glasses. She asked are you doing this for looks as glasses were getting a little more commonplace but not like they are today. That was the summer both my Grandmother on my Mom’s side and my Grandfather on my Dad’s side were both very ill and both would pass away by October. In the 8th grade we had another screening where this time you read the letters. I struggled and told them I couldn’t read a certain line expecting to be sent for further testing. Instead they told me to take my time and I must have read enough not to get sent to the Dr. I found out on the car ride home one of my friends had trouble seeing and was told he would be retested in a week or two. He did not get sent for further testing. No screening took place in the 9th grade which was still at the Jr. High. I was sure I would fail the driver’s permit test while in 10th grade. It looked like I was going to take Driver’s Ed in the second semester of the school year. I was going to insist that I go for an eye exam before I took the test. A few Driver’s Ed spots opened up very early in my 10th grade year and by birthdate I got one. My Dad who got off work before my Mom took me to the License Bureau and even though I was sure I was going to fail the eye exam but I passed barely. In January after completing both the in car and classroom Driver’s Ed I was taken to get my license by my Mom who took off work half a day. Due to good grades in both parts of Driver’s Ed I never had to take an in car test. Just a written test and the dreaded vision test. I passed both although the vision test was close. I was restricted to an outside rearview mirror which meant one eye could read the 20/40 line (barely) and one eye couldn’t. I got a car and drove to school all throughout my Jr. and Senior years of high school graduating a semester early in February of 78 delayed a month by the worst winter the Louisville area has ever had to this day. I went to work not making that much money and didn’t go for a “real” eye exam until age 23 in 82. I was told as expected I needed glasses. I bought a pair that turned out to be cheap and I got what I paid for. I wanted the 80’s version of transitions then called photochromic. The office didn’t have the right lenses so I got a top tint instead. Even though I lived with my parents they never knew I had the glasses. I only ever wore them when driving at night by myself and they did help. Before I got the glasses I went thru another exam for my license and passed barely. After I got them I had one more vision exam for license and passed again barely. Being cheap one lens fell out. I managed to get it back in but after a while I gave up on wearing them. I then went until 86 at age 27 when I borrowed money to get glasses for good and went “public” with them. I wore them anytime I went out of the house but not at home. I went to get an early version of a commercial license for a job I didn’t get. For the first time ever I was not worried about the eye test. I maybe could have passed it with the old take my time trick but didn’t want to as I already knew in a couple of months wearing glasses how much they helped with driving especially at night. Again due to money I wore the same lenses for 4 years with one frame change. In 1990 having more money after getting an eye exam I went to Lens Crafters and got 2 pair one being sunglasses. I went thru some prescription changes in the 90’s winding up at about a minus 2. I had been wearing my glasses some at home by the early 90’s and about 96 or 97 starting wearing them full time. When I got to my mid to later 30’s I began complaining about up close with glasses. I finally got a fill in Dr. to give me bifocals or progressive while my regular Dr. that I had started with in the mid 90’s was on vacation. I got progressive and was able to adjust easily and happy with them. In the year 2000 I started checking out Lasik. I decided to go ahead and have it which I did on 11/21/2000. I was happy with it at first. The morning after the surgery I went to the License Bureau I got my first ever unrestricted license. The ladies at the License Bureau were rooting for me after I told them what I had done. Keep in mind Lasik was still fairly new at the time. Due to being age 41 and going into progressives early my left eye was left slightly back for reading. I did not have to use OTC readers which the Surgeons office told me I could if needed except for the smallest things and not for reading normal size newspapers or books. I went thru yearly exams and everything was great until about 2008 when the Dr. started telling me I needed glasses for night driving. I got them about a year later and probably wore them more them I should have. By this time you only had to take a license exam every 12 years as you could renew every other time online. I passed in 2006 with still no restrictons and did it online in 2012. Still getting an exam every year I was told in 2013 I could now wear them all the time which I was close to anyway. I went thru the normal prescription changes having my left eye get back to -2 and my right eye going to -1.25 and them back to -1. It should have said when I went back to glasses I got progressive. I did try a pair of single vision just for driving and didn’t care for them. Despite being told in 2013 I would not pass the license eye exam I passed it in the fall of 2017 with my right or stronger eye only. That meant outside rear view mirror restriction which has been the same as it was 30+ years ago. To close when I went for my routine exam in 2018 I was told at age 59 I have the very start of cataracts. The cataracts are nowhere near bad enough to do anything with as I still have 20/20 vision with glasses and no problems driving at night. I’m waiting on the exam in the fall of this year to see if the cataracts have progressed any.
https://vision-and-spex.com/glasses-and-eyesight-history-going-back-t1243.html