Something happened to me the other day.

Sort of, you might say, a rite of passage.

But in reality, the rite of passage probably began almost forty years ago.

Let’s go back there.

*****

I’m a little squirt of a boy in the 3^rd grade.

I am easily distracted from the real work, which is, schoolwork.

One of the distractions is a new fad, or so it seems, that has taken my grade by storm.

I hear rumors that the fluorescent light fixtures in our school are emitting strange frequencies that slowly but surely knock out vision.

Lots of my compadre’s are getting glasses. 

Soon, I am one of the few who doesn’t have glasses.

And then, the scourge hits me, and I am squinting and squenching just to see what’s up on the chalkboard, let alone make out if it is a drawing or letters.

My mother and I make the acquaintance of a nice eye doctor who confirms the worst, or best, depending if you are one of the few who aren’t in the ‘in’ group who wear glasses.

The adults in my world see my new ‘look’ and say I look scholarly.

I’m not sure if they mean the way I look at things through my eyes, or what they are seeing through their eyes.

It’s not long before the frames on my new glasses are bent in different directions than they used to be, and the lenses are usually in a hopeless state of smudge. 

I develop my own unique style, like everyone who wears glasses does, of getting my glasses pushed back up on my nose without ever touching them with my hands.

But it’s not until that first Sunday that I get the shock of my life. 

I’m sitting on the balcony, and, I may or may not have been behaving when I glanced up at the minister some 100 some feet away, and saw his face looked really strange.  It was so narrow, and angular.  I couldn’t remember hearing of anything that might have changed his visage in such a way. 

And then it dawned on me; I slipped my glasses off, and he looked normal.  Just a long-distance face that had no features whatsoever.  I was amazed.  I finally decided that he must look ‘right’ with my glasses on, even though he really looked completely wrong to me. 

Maybe those lights over in that school room had really done a number to me. . .

*****

It’s about twenty years later, I am going through moderate to severe problems with my contacts.

My right eye does fine, but my left has an attitude of its own. 

The contacts are supposed to last two weeks, or, as it tends to happen with me, four weeks. 

At first, my left eye does its trick at about the three-week mark.

Then it dials back to two weeks.

Towards the last, it only makes it a week or less before it goes into extreme spasms and regurgitates my contact, after which I can’t begin to get it back in. 

My eye doctor says no more contacts.  My eyes are rejecting them from the almost twenty years of constant wearing them.

He suggests surgery. 

I’m a huge fan of his suggestion.

A few weeks later, we are in Oklahoma City, and, after 45 minutes during which I am subjected to two terrifying minutes when my sight completely left me due to the suction they used to immobilize my eye for the initial cuts, my vision is 20/10, and I walk out in a daze.

On the way home, I marvel at how I can read the road signs long before my wife and family can.  (I still can, for that matter.  Just had to toss that out there, for certain of my family to read.)

But alas, reality has other plans and strikes back. 

Literally.

Just like the first Sunday with my glasses, I come smack up against a startling difference.

I am teaching the 7^th and 8^th grades at this time in our little country school. 

Of course, it is my prerogative, as the only male teacher, to save face in whatever situation with my students.

Pre surgery, I employ several methods to do this. 

One is out on the ballfield. 

I am second to none. 

Every pitch is destructed under my merciless, unrelenting swing of the bat.

But post-surgery . . .

I strike out.

Every time I get up to bat.

Every. Lasting. Time.

And my students, at first quite surreptitiously, try to hide their smirks and gentle chuckles.

And me? 

I am flabbergasted at myself, and I let it be known. 

Of course, it’s the surgery.  It has to be.

My depth perception is off when I back up to trailers, so it has to be what the deal is.

But my students . . . finally don’t even bother to hide their smiles and their chuckles turn into real laughter, even as I vociferously speak my mind about depth perception and how I never struck out before the surgery. 

They just smile at that last remark.

*****

I stepped into my eye doctor’s office for a regular exam the other day, almost twenty years after the surgery that left me with stellar vision and a plummeting batting average.

I had a new eye doctor this time, like I had the last time. 

Seems like they are so young anymore, but, what with today’s beauty aids and all it’s not surprising they look that way.

The doctor suggested I get fitted for glasses.

She quickly propped up my deflated ego by saying that I had fighter pilot vision . . . long range. 

(See there, family?)

But then she held this little card up to me.  I think they spite you just by the size of the card to begin with.

And then they put this impossibly small print on it and ask you to read it in the presence of other young things in the room.

“Can you read the bottom line?” she chirped.

“Absolutely,” I said, before a little later adding, ‘not.’

So, I manned up and ordered myself some glasses, but only on a trial basis.

And today, I get them fitted.

And the young thing that is fitting them asks if everything looks all wacky, because, ‘some people go crazy with these for the first few days.’

And I remember, oh how well I remember, those first few days for my wonderful wife. 

I’m not sure who was the craziest by the time it was over, but anyway.

But I was delighted to tell the young thing that honestly, ‘nothing seemed too out of whack with them.’

She gave a knowing smile and said, “That’s wonderful!”

Upon which I got myself back to my truck and proceeded on homeward.

Other than putting a scratch on the right lens within an hour of being fitted all seemed to go swarmingly.

At least that’s what it seemed to be going like.

My neck began to tire quite soon from the rapid jerky movements it was subjected to due to eye commands.

And I repeatedly took them off to check for the obvious smudge that must be on them, because, just like post-surgery, it couldn’t be related to me.

And even as I type this, the computer seems to be playing a fiendish game of ‘now you see me, now you don’t,’ with the words and letters. 

But, perhaps, it’s the words of one of the sweet daughters that urges me onward.

“They make you look younger,” she said, of my stylish new glasses.

Which begs the question—What did I look like before?

Again, I’m not sure if she means the way I look at things through my eyes, or what she is seeing through her eyes.

This rite of passage looks to be a wiggly waggly walk in the park.

But I will admit, I have been getting mighty tired of taking pictures of any type less than say, a quarter inch tall, and then blowing them up so I can see what it says.

And restaurant lighting?  Don’t even get me started.