Now & Then | I never thought I’d need that!

About the time this column comes out in The Times, I will probably have had my second cataract surgery, this time on the left eye. I never thought I’d ever need cataract surgery!

But, I guess we often end up doing things we never thought we’d need to do.

My wife had cataract surgery in both eyes before I got started with it. It has been interesting, going to the clinic and to the surgery center. We keep running onto Pea Ridge acquaintances who are also there having cataract surgery. It must be habit forming! Although I was told six years ago that I would be helped by cataract surgery for both eyes, I still thought I’d never need it. But when I went to the optometrist a few weeks ago, he checked me over, sat me down, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Joe, (that’s my first name), we ‘might’ be able with new eyeglass lenses to get you vision good enough that you could pass the driver’s test, but I think it is time to get your old nearsighted lenses out and get you some implants you can really see with!”

So, reluctantly, I said, “OK.” So it goes. I never thought I’d need to do it.

I never thought I’d need eyeglasses in the first place. I made it through high school without them, played basketball and could read the blackboard in class so long as I didn’t sit in the back of the room. I didn’t really know you were supposed to see the blackboard from the back of the room, or that you were supposedChevrolet in Bentonville.

Glen True, one of my role models there, asked me one day why I was getting down so close to the distributor to set the points on a Chevy V8. I guess I had always brought things closer to see them better. I learned later that that means you are nearsighted, and that I was very.

I finally got eyeglasses in 1963, after I had started back to school and was enrolled at Hendrix College in Conway. By that time I was pastor of a church, married and had two children. It was pretty amazing, being able to see things I never thought about being able to see.

Right now, being between cataract surgeries, I am in a weird situation of having a new right eye which sees really well at a distance, but not so well up close; whereas my old left eye is very nearsighted, very astigmatic and seems very unwilling now to help the other eye in seeing. I can drive easily with no eyeglasses, but I am having to use one pair of eyeglasses for reading at the desk and another pair for seeing the computer screen. I have to switch glasses to see my notes, then change back to the other pair to write on the computer.

I’ll sure be glad when these old eyes are working together better. I suggested to the lady who does the frames at my optometrist’s office that we try taking out the right lens in my old eyeglasses, so I could see with my normal left prescription and let the new right eye see with no correction. That little experiment didn’t go well. I saw two of everything. Everybody had two faces (no pun intended). Every car was two cars. Every sign was printed with two different sized letterings, one on top of the other. So, right now I am using a $7 pair of offthe-shelf eyeglasses to see the computer screen, and a $4 pair to see stuff on my desk.

As my life has gone, I have ended up needing several things I never thought I’d ever need. I have been mostly outrageously healthy. I never thought I’d ever have a heart attack, or that I’d ever need to take pills for cholesterol.

But here I am, taking an aspirin and a pill every day for the heart’s sake. I never thought I’d ever need a cell phone. Now I make and receive more calls on my cell phone than on the house phone. I never thought I’d ever need a pickup truck.

Now I would hate to haveto get along without my trusty little Dakota. I never thought I’d ever need a riding lawn mower. Now I mow with my Bolens rider almost every week, except when I am having cataract surgery.

I still have a few things that I don’t think I’ll ever need. I don’t think I’ll ever need an electric razor, or an electric toothbrush or a texting cell phone. Who knows? Someday they may invent an electric toothpick. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t ever need one of those. But then, I never thought I’d need a wide screen TV, or a digital TV, or a key clicker to lock the car doors, or an electric car window raiser or a remote for changing the TV channel.

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Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Community, Pages 5 on 07/28/2010