Oh Say Can You See. (original) (raw)

OH, SAY CAN YOU SEE! by George Lester

I could see very well. I had 20/20 vision in both eyes, but I wanted to wear glasses. A few of my friends at school had corrective lenses, and I thought they were so neat. I guess it was sort of a status symbol to me, like being a member of an exclusive club. Every time they would check the students� vision at school with the standard eye chart, I hoped it would prove that I needed glasses. I even thought about faking it and pretending that the letters blurred, but I was afraid the examiner would catch on.

One of my best friends, Gary, wore glasses. I would ask him to let me put them on so I could see what I looked like. The image that reflected back from the mirror fortified my determination. I thought I looked great as a bespectacled person, and I was obsessed with getting a pair of my own. Pleading with my mother didn�t help. I wanted her to take me to a real eye doctor, hoping maybe he would find some deficiency the school examiner had missed. She never accused me of being a vision hypochondriac, although that would have been a fair assumption. I finally realized I was not going to get glasses no matter what ploy I cooked up, but I never gave up my dream.

One day my class lined up to take pictures for the yearbook. After the photographer had finished with Gary, I stopped him on his way out. A plan brewing in my mind, I asked him to lend me his glasses for a few minutes, and he obliged. When I stepped before the camera, I was wearing those beautiful specs I had admired for so long. Years after that, when people looked at the yearbook, they remembered me that way. In my mind I had attained a sort of immortality. �That�s Eddie Lester, the kid who wore glasses.�