To say my eyesight is questionable is a bit of an understatement; like saying Tom Brady is so old, some of his teammates are his grandchildren. And they are a pesky bunch. I heard they like to deflate his balls but I digress.
I have worn glasses most of my life but did not get my first pair until I was in my second year in the Army. The nuns I had in grade school used to give every student yearly eye tests, but if you failed, they would just say you were faking it and that was that. I wish they gave me that kind of leeway when I misspelled a word during one of our regular spelling bees. You know how embarrassing it is to be the only one standing because everyone else correctly spelled the word given them? By the way, there are a lot of ways to spell “cat” and I didn’t have spell check to fall back on.
Even though I always failed those tests, my vision was never corrected. One night, while on watch when I was in the Army, I suddenly went blind. My sight came back in a matter of minutes but I was in such a panic, the next morning, when I was supposed to be sleeping after pulling an all night shift, I was first in line at the optometrist office at the hospital where I was stationed. After a thorough eye examination, by someone not wearing a nun’s habit, it was determined that my eyesight was not good and I had an astigmatism (I said gesundheit to the doctor. Seemed funny to me at the time.) . The doctor explained that since I did not wear glasses to correct my sight issues, my eyes finally got so tired, they decided to take a few minutes off to reset. I was immediately issued a pair of those stylish military glasses and my problem was fixed. When I asked my colleagues if the spectacles made me look smarter? They walked away laughing. What was that?
The doctor added that my vision would get worse as I aged and I would most likely be wearing trifocals one day. That day came in my late forties and I still wear them today. They’re not so bad. One issue though. I have to tilt my head up and down a lot to use them and my wife thinks I’m agreeing with her all the time. You know how many Hallmark Christmas movies I’ve had to watch as a result?
I have to admit that I have become very frustrated with my eyesight in the last few years. I love to golf and I play a round each week with a group of my friends. The problem I have is not being able to see where my ball goes after I hit it. I can see the direction as the ball leaves the tee, but it then disappears and I can only hope it continues in that direction. The ball may have hooked, sliced or continued in the direction I first saw but I can never be sure. I depend on my fellow golfers to track my shots. The guy wearing the “coke bottle” glasses can give me a detailed description of how my ball hit the green and rolled down a slope towards the flag while I can’t even see the flag. It is frustrating and I’ve had enough.
I made an appointment to have my eyes checked in an effort to fix my problem. I had a very nice doctor, who adjusted my prescription just a little, then wished me luck on trying to follow my golf balls, saying there’s nothing he could do. That’s just the nature of my vision. Can they train a seeing eye dog to follow golf balls?
Damn! What if I had to do something important requiring good eyesight, like calling in a drone strike on my neighbor kid’s garage band. Because of my poor eyesight, I’ll get the coordinates wrong and inadvertently take out another neighbor’s weekly yard sale (that would’ve been second on my list, so no real loss). I guess my dreams of piloting a passenger airliner are dead.
I could depend on my golf buddies, but there are times, while I’m teeing off, opening a beer is far more important to them than watching my golf ball. I understand their priorities. I usually crack one open when I find out where my ball actually ended up.
I did have a bit of an issue this past week as I was driving to my weekly golf game. I have a bit of a drive to get there and we have a very early tee time, so I’m usually driving in the dark. I am also driving so early the only people on the road are giant trucks trying to get an early start on their day and people leaving those bars that shut down just before dawn. I’ve learned to spot those drivers. They’re usually driving way under the speed limit, have their bright lights on (yes, it might seem darker if you have a snoot full) and they tend to weave a lot. They do this in hopes of not being noticed by the Highway Patrol. I have never seen one pulled over, so I guess it must work.
I do my best to get around these drunks as fast as I can. Good eyesight is important for these drives so I can avoid the fiery accident that may result from these inebriated idiots. I have been stuck on a closed freeway as a result.
While driving the other morning, the right lens of my glasses fell out without me knowing it, and I thought I may have had a stroke. All of sudden, my right eye went blurry and I was having trouble seeing the dashboard, not to mention the road. My wife once told me, one way of checking to see if you had a stroke is to stick your tongue out and if you can’t move it to both sides of your mouth, you may have had a stroke. After a short time, I reached up to adjust my glasses and noticed the missing lens. I immediately reached for the backup pair in my glove box (everyone who depends on glasses always has a back-up pair within reach). It caused me to slow down and weave back and forth in my lane. Imagine what the other drivers thought when they saw a guy in the other car wagging his tongue back and forth while the car was weaving all over the highway. Even the drunk drivers were running for cover.
After thinking about my sight situation for a while, maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t see where my ball goes. It would only upset me. At least I can see where my buddy stores the beer in his golf bag. Fore!
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