Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 23, 1994                   TAG: 9406030062
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Monty S. Leitch
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NEW FRAMES?

"Oh, they're bifocals!" we answer each other, tittering nervously. "Did you ever think we'd get this old?"

"They look very nice," we tell each other consolingly. "Those frames really suit your face."

And all the while we're thinking, "Thank heavens they can make them without those awful lines in them these days!"

Vanity, vanity.

The man of the house "forgot" to mention that his new glasses would be bifocals until he brought them home.

"Nice frames," I said when I saw them, not having been invited to help him pick them out.

"Oh," he said, taking them off, examining them self- consciously, "did I tell you that they're bifocals?"

Well, we're not that old!

But for the last couple of years, every time I've visited the ophthalmologist, he's started off by saying, "You're getting to that age where we have to start thinking about bifocals."

So far, thinking is all I've had to do.

Although this year the prescription in my contact lenses couldn't correct all the astigmatism, and so now I have driving glasses to wear with the contacts.

For reading the road signs, you see. (The man of the house wasn't invited to help me pick out my frames, either.)

I can hear what you're thinking. "You might as well have bifocals," you're saying, "as wear glasses with your contact lenses. Indeed!"

I say, "It's not the same."

I say, too, it's only small consolation for having had to wear eyeglasses since I was 11 years old.

Yesterday was my younger brother's birthday. He's getting to that age. But he doesn't wear glasses. None at all. Never has. Neither does my sister.

What happened to my genes?

Of course, neither one of them ever read all night by the light of a flashlight stuck up under the covers. Mama tried to tell me this would happen.

I thought, though, in the fifth grade that my new glasses frames were the most beautiful frames in the world. Toasty brown cat-eyes, with rhinestones.

My driving glasses are sparkling cat-eyes, too. But blue, this time. Blue matches my grey hair better, you see.

Oh, we're not that old! Are we?

On this date in 1785, Ben Franklin first mentioned bifocals in print.

In 1785, Benjamin Franklin was 79 years old.

Well, we're certainly not that old!

Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.