Seeing Signs

Looking back, it was almost a wonder that it took nine years before anyone noticed.

I don't remember specifically what caused my parents to make an appointment for me to see the optometrist. I know it was a notification from school of some sort. Perhaps Mrs. Rell caught me squinting at the blackboard. Perhaps all the fourth graders had been subjected to a routine vision screening in the middle of their annual lice checks.

Whatever it was, I knew my mother was irritated the day of my appointment. I wasn't quite sure where I was going, but I was sure pleased as punch that I was missing school. But as Mom combed the snarls out of my hair that morning, all she did was grumble about the incredibly high cost of eyeglasses, and I started to feel a little guilty, thinking I had done something to make her mad. I quickly scanned my brain for my recent list of misdeeds, wondering what I had done. Coming up with nothing (since I was mostly perfect anyway), I tried to keep quiet, at least until she finished getting out the tangles. Never, ever agitate someone with a comb in your hair. It hurts more.

Dr. Marc Sapien was a kind, grandfatherly type (to me, anyway - he was probably in his late 30s then), and he introduced me to his big eye-checking machine - the "monster" - as he affectionately called it. (How this is supposed to comfort little kids is beyond me...maybe Dr. Sapien had a mean streak.) He completed the routine exam (which looks clearer, this or this?), and determined that I was wildly nearsighted at 20/200. (It was obviously only due to my stupendous intelligence that I had done so well in school to this point...thank goodness I'm so humble or I'd go on and on about how smart I am.)

We selected some frames - or my mom selected some for me. (This has always bewildered me - how do you let nearly blind people select frames, anyway? Isn't that some kind of demented joke?) It would be a couple weeks or so before I could pick up my new glasses. (This was back in the olden days before Lenscrafters and family discounts with Jeff.)

But oh, happy day, when I first put on those glasses. Those with perfect vision (like all of my siblings) may never understand a moment like this. We left the office and I paused outside of the optometrist's door and looked up and down the street. I stared in wonder at every car that passed and could clearly see the drivers' faces through the windshields and read every license plate. I could see inside every store window - the mannequin displays down at Newberrys and the shoe racks in Hills Brothers. And the signs - gosh, so many signs, all with words, and I could read every single one of them, never knowing they even existed before. Before eyeglasses, they were nothing to me but white squares with darker blurs smeared across them.

Oh sure, I guess I saw the blackboard in school after that with no problem....I don't remember, to tell the truth. I suppose I did even better in school as a result. Don't remember that either.

But I clearly remember that afternoon on Manchester Avenue. The sun was shining. And I could see it.