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OH,
SAY CAN YOU SEE!
by
George Lester |  |
I
could see very well. I had 20/20 vision in both eyes, but I wanted to wear glasses.
A few of my friends at school had corrective lenses, and I thought they were so
neat. I guess it was sort of a status symbol to me, like being a member of an
exclusive club. Every time they would check the students’ vision at school with
the standard eye chart, I hoped it would prove that I needed glasses. I even thought
about faking it and pretending that the letters blurred, but I was afraid the
examiner would catch on.
One of my best friends, Gary, wore glasses. I
would ask him to let me put them on so I could see what I looked like. The image
that reflected back from the mirror fortified my determination. I thought I looked
great as a bespectacled person, and I was obsessed with getting a pair of my own.
Pleading with my mother didn’t help. I wanted her to take me to a real eye doctor,
hoping maybe he would find some deficiency the school examiner had missed. She
never accused me of being a vision hypochondriac, although that would have been
a fair assumption. I finally realized I was not going to get glasses no matter
what ploy I cooked up, but I never gave up my dream.
One day my class
lined up to take pictures for the yearbook. After the photographer had finished
with Gary, I stopped him on his way out. A plan brewing in my mind, I asked him
to lend me his glasses for a few minutes, and he obliged. When I stepped before
the camera, I was wearing those beautiful specs I had admired for so long. Years
after that, when people looked at the yearbook, they remembered me that way. In
my mind I had attained a sort of immortality. “That’s Eddie Lester, the kid who
wore glasses.” |
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