My First Glasses

Somewhere, I have a better picture of my 14-year-old self in my first pair of glasses. Of all the ridiculous pictures of myself that I have posted here, that one would really take the cake. Please notice that, in my Grade 11 class, there are two of us wearing glasses. Now, we all know that many more than that wore them every day, but everyone except for Richard Clarke and myself was vain enough to take them off for the picture.

I think my parents were a little chagrined that the school had to let them know that I needed glasses. They had not noticed, and I hadn't either. Well, you don't, do you? I did notice that some teachers wrote very lightly on the blackboard, and I thought that was unsporting of them, but things had gone fuzzy so gradually, that I couldn't remember anything else.

Of course, it was a financial stretch to get the darn things, so I was allowed to pick from only the cheapest frames. That was a selection of maybe six pairs; all of them ugly. My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to find myself the least ugly pair of frames. It was 1963. Cats-eye frames were de rigeur. Most of them were black on top and clear underneath, but I managed to find a pair that were sort of a mottled taupe on top and clear underneath.

Yup. The ugliest pair there. Thing is, they were the closest to invisible, so that was why I thought they looked all right.

They could not have looked any dorkier if they had come with built-in electrical tape at the bridge of the nose.

And, of course, about four days later, everybody who wore glasses had black frames. Black all around. They were still cat's-eye shape, but that clear underneath thing was SO last week!

I was stuck with them for two years, until I ran head-on into a goal post playing field hockey. Then I got black ones. Two years too late.