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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
May 17, 2009
Published as Family History
in a Gramma Letter dated May 14, 1996.
© 2009 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Angela's Eyes, 1985
© 1985 by Bud Grossmann
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UNWIRED
Tuesday, May 14, 1996
Dear Gramma,
I hate my eyeglasses. I can see perfectly well with them, but I don’t look so good. My eye doctor chose the frames for me, and I’ve learned a lesson: beware of fashion advice from someone who wears a white lab coat through all the seasons of the year.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. The truth is, I adore my optometrist. I’ve been taking my eyeballs to the same capable and caring person for a decade and more, to find out each year whether I can still read the writing on the wall. A few visits ago, my doctor—Anne Matsushima, O.D.—prescribed my first bifocals. I’m sure Anne had the best of intentions when she urged me to select frames a little more up-to-date than the wire rims I had worn since my college days in the 1960’s, but I wish I had resisted her kindness.
Now when I look into a mirror, I see the exaggerated features of a circus clown. My present spectacles are about a third larger in surface area than their predecessors. I’ll admit the old glasses might have been a bit undersized—I just now retrieved the spare pair from a desk drawer and tried them on, and they seemed tight. Putting on those wire rimmed glasses today, I felt like I should hold in my breath the way I do when I button up an old pair of Levi’s.
The new frames, by the way, are by no means wild or exotic. They just happen to be larger and slightly more obtrusive than what I had before. And, instead of metal, they are plastic—a thin, dark tortoise shell style. They’re okay, but I had grown attached to the old glasses; we had been through a lot together.
When my first wire rims were nearly new, I was working in a state hospital for mentally ill persons. One day, a patient snatched them from my face and broke loose one of the two thin metal bars that connected the lenses at the top. I had a jeweler weld the bar back in place, and the glasses held up well under other sorts of rough handling in the next few years.
But then, one day in a basketball game, an opposing player fouled me. The player was my mother-in-law, Margie Wong Tom, if you can imagine that! (This was back before I became a papa. Fran, her mom, a few friends, and I used to play half-court games twice a week for our regular exercise.) Margie, on this memorable occasion, ran full-tilt into me beneath the basket and knocked my glasses to the ground. All in an instant, a lens popped out, Margie took one step more, and she flattened the empty half of the frame. The game continued—I used a white cane throughout the rest of the competition. Afterwards, working carefully with thin-nosed pliers, I coaxed the frame to hold the now-chipped lens, but the fit was not snug. So, the next time I needed a new prescription, I bought an almost identical set of frames. That’s the pair I tried on a moment ago.
Standing before a mirror, in the old glasses, I took a long look at myself. I saw the Bud I’m used to seeing in photos. The hair and whiskers have more gray than they once did; the skin shows more lines and sun damage. Without the loops of tortoise shell resting on my cheeks, my nose seems larger than I remembered. But, no problem; I recognize the man before me, and I like him.
Maybe Anne Matsushima is friendly with that fellow who wears glasses big as dinner plates. As for me, though, I have never really warmed up to him. It wouldn’t make economic sense to ask Anne to sell me a set of wires again while there’s life still remaining in the big plastic frames. But, you know, I’m thinking. Maybe I’ll ask Margie if she wants to play some basketball.
♦
Good wishes to you, dear Grandmother. I hope your injured arm is mending well.
Love,
Buddy
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