E is for Eye Operations

Yet another tale of childhood humiliation

I had five eye operations before I was thirteen years old. I mean to tell you, my eyes were messed up.

I was one of those kids who was always wearing an eye patch on one eye and/or or thick glasses, which I hated and had a habit of “losing.”

Without my glasses, I was cross-eyed in one eye, and that one eye would be orbiting the room while the other looked straight ahead.

With or without glasses, I was teased.

You’re ugly eyes, a boy in my first grade class would say.

Yeah. You’re ugly, too! I’d say back.

But you got crossed eyes.

Well you look like your mama mated with a rhino.

It seemed so unfair to me when I was sent home with a note for my parents for saying mean things. I was just defending myself, I thought. I wanted to ask Mrs. Wallace, my first grade teacher: Why don’t you try going to school with crossed eyes some day. See how you like it.

(Sometimes when I think about stories like this, I think I had early training in rejection, in taking the abuse that I think writing (or trying to get something into print) puts you through.)