Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

20/20

Ken and I sat at the middle table in the back row of ninth grade biology class. I don't remember planning to do that. It just turned out that way on the seating chart that the teacher made up, which was, simply put, from Mr. Gutman's perspective, a mistake. Of course, all of the secrets of the universe -- such as those that caused the confluence of events seating Ken and me together at that old wooden table, blackened by age, with holes for ink bottles -- couldn't be known by a ninth-grade biology teacher, even if he was chosen to teach the honors biology class.

Ken and I had a great time in biology class. Neither of us could see the chalk board from where we were sitting. We cut up all kinds of things, living and dead; and we were the ones who added the phenolphthalein to the fish tank, turning the water red. We didn't have the guts to add a little to Mr. Gutman's water glass, not knowing how much would be enough to create the desired effect and how much would kill him. We were, after all, in the honors biology class and not permitted to kill teachers.

In early October, we were the conduit for the Red Sox -- Cardinals World Series games, since for a time, before recorded history, anyway, the games were played in the middle of the afternoon and in early October (starting Wednesday, October 4, that year), when it was relatively warm, and could be heard on a thing called a transistor radio. We relayed the score to the others in the class as the action occurred. Mr. Gutman caught on -- teachers weren't as dumb back in those days, I guess, and I think the ear plug gave us away -- and told us to let him know how his boy, Carl Yastrzemski, was doing each at-bat.

In May, however, Mr. Gutman ordered Ken and me to report to the dreaded school nurse for eye exams. He said he was tired of writing big so that we could read what he was writing on the chalk board. We never knew he was writing bigger. We couldn't even see the writing. It turns out that we, both Ken and I, needed eyeglasses.

So, late into my fourth decade of wearing glasses, moving on to hard contact lenses that I cleaned by popping them into my mouth, and graduating to soft lenses when they were on the market, on Friday morning, just as pizza was brought into the main waiting room, I was led into a dimly-lit room with four other people who couldn't see very well, waiting to be called to have our eyes laid open and lasered so we could see the world again without corrective lenses, and paying for that pleasure, waiting for the two Benadryl and the Valium to drain away any doubts and inhibitions we might have about walking through the door with the bearded guy into the unknown, but having heard that this was a good thing.

I don't remember much ... except for the smell I described below and my right eye being held by some kind of mechanical contraption from outer space, being told by a disembodied voice to stare at the pulsating red light that was all blurry and hazy, all kinds of liquid being poured on my eye, and then the red light starting to come into focus the longer I smelled my eyeball burning. Then the other eye, a lot of liquids being squirted at my eye, some kind of white paddle smoothing out my eye at the end. Then he said, "You did great. Get the fuck outta here." Or maybe that was the drugs. In the dream I had the night before, he told me I needed two root canals, too. It turns out that I didn't. At least, I don't remember those.

I have a picture of me and the purported eye surgeon, which I don't recollect having been taken. I wasn't acquainted with reality on Friday. I was sleeping, I think, a drug-induced sleep.

Saturday afternoon, though, at my follow-up, I could see better than I have since before the ninth grade.

I am truly amazed.

Posted by Bill at May 14, 2007 05:35 PM