This is a true story and the only variations could be from a fuzzy memory. My Uncle that I’ll call Jack passed away in about 2005 at age 82 but this is his story. As a kid I was always interested in Jack’s glasses. Jack wore bifocals with the line all the way across them. As I learned more about what bifocals do I was always wondered why Jack took off his glasses to read and do crossword puzzles which he loved and was good at. In the 90’s when I got in my late 30’s I understood why Jack was still taking off his glasses to read as I was Myopic and was doing the same thing. Jack worked for a sporting goods wholesaler in Louisville Kentucky until they went out of business. Jack then took a job out of state and I saw him rarely until that company too went out of business. After I was grown Jack took a job with a box company in Louisville at a company that operates to this day. Jack retired from the box company at around age 70. In 84 Jack’s glasses got broken somehow at work and the company paid for a new pair. Jack wore these glasses for 18 years. This was the year after Jack had a heart attack followed by bypass surgery. Jack who smoked at least 3 packs of cigarettes a day quit cold turkey after that. One night in 2002 Jack called the house where I lived with my Mom and said he didn’t feel good. My Mom who did not like to drive at night got me up to take him to the hospital. When we arrived at the senior citizens apartment Jack was in the lobby but couldn’t get up on his own. We called 911 and he was taken to Floyd Memorial Hospital in New Albany Indiana where he was diagnosed with a hole in his aorta. Jack was moved to Jewish hospital in Louisville where he was treated and them sent to a nursing home for rehab and that is where his 18 year old glasses broke. I took an old glasses frame of mine and tried to put the lenses in them and they fit but not perfect. When Jack was strong enough my Mom took him to the Optometrist practice we both went to and I still see to this day. As hard as it is to believe Jack showed no signs of cataracts in his late 70’s and left the same day with a new pair of flat top 28 bifocals. I often wished I had asked him how different the flat top bifocals were compared to the glasses with the lines all the way across.