Life without glasses for the first time in 60 years

[msminlr]

I did a little digging in the Family Photo Albums after lunch today, looking for the last pictures of me without glasses and the first ones with them. My third-grade school picture [1955-56 school year] and photos from Christmas 1955 show me not wearing them. I don't seem to have a 4th grade school photo, but my 5th grade pictures [1957-58 year]

Comments

[starcat_jewel]

I got my first glasses as soon as I started school -- my parents seem not to have noticed that I was nearsighted, but the teacher did. There are no pictures of me after age 5 in which I'm not wearing them.

[msminlr]

I was a little surprised myself at not seeing photos of me in glasses younger than 5th grade.

I got skipped from 2nd to 3rd grade along-about Hallowe'en of that school year [missing the Fall Carnival at BOTH elementary schools, ISTR]. The 1955 Christmas photo [sans glasses] were taken shortly after the jump and I suspect the school photo was taken around-about then also, as my haircuts match very closely in those 2 pictures. I may have got glasses in January of the third grade and I just don't have any photos from that spring/summer showing them.

I can't believe that Mrs. Korthauer would have missed that I couldn't really see the blackboard lettering from my normal seat, but could from the front row. I got put in her room *because* of being jumped forward and needing tutoring to catch up on things like 'the rest of 2nd grade arithmetic' and 'longhand writing', and she was considered the best 3rd grade teacher at Lamar Elementary.