I Can See Clearly Now…

I have a pet project I undertake each year. Our local area has a free eyeglass program for kids that need glasses and financially qualify for the program. This project is very time consuming because of all the prescreening to determine which kids need glasses and also qualify for the program under the financial guidelines. Today is the day the bus pulled up with the optometrist and all his equipment to perform the free eye examines and to take orders for glasses. It has been a very busy and gratifying day and I’ll leave you with a couple little stories.

Bridgett, a first grader, had her eyes dilated for the exam and they gave here a pair of dark glasses to protect her eyes from the bright sunlight. The glasses are just dark flimsy plastic. For some reason she was afraid of the glasses and would not wear them. She said perhaps if they were pink or green she might wear them. Once again I was baffled by the hidden subtleties of first grade logic. When she left she was hiding the glasses and could barely see because her eyes were closed to slits to protect from the sunlight.

A kindergarten boy went back to class wearing his dark glasses. When I had a break I went around making sure the kids were still wearing their glasses when they went out in the sun. The kindergarten teacher called me over because the little boy would not take off his glasses in class. He told the teacher he could only see when he was wearing the sunglasses. I looked over at him and the sunglasses were all lopsided on his face. Then all the other kids noticed me and came running over asking if they too could have dark sunglasses. Once again I totally disrupted the institute of learning!