Word verification and cataracts

My first pair of glasses came at age ten.  Until then I didn’t know I couldn’t see.  But once I could see, I had to see it all, perfectly.  That from someone with 20/200 uncorrected vision, and astigmatism. All my ophthalmologists have been happy to ask “Better one or two?” until I came back to 20/20 vision.  My biggest problem was finding a nice pair of new frames to go around my new lenses every year or two.

For more than ten years I’ve heard about my little cataracts from any doctor who put a light into my eyes, including the ophthalmologist.  Little things.  Scarcely a mote, according to the doctors who mentioned it.  I know I cannot tell navy blue from hunter green and seldom need sunglasses, and assume that is due to the cataracts.  I could have worse problems.

This past year, though, the little buggers gained on me.  If I needed to read a road sign accurately and in time to know what it meant, I just dropped my right eye out of service and went with the left.  I knew I would be seeing the ophthalmologist in November and I could get that eye sorted out.

Not so fast, the doctor said.  There is eye surgery and there is eye surgery.  To correct vision a tiny slit of cornea is lifted, a snip here and there to make the lens more perfect, a little astigmatism work, plop the cornea back, done.  Ten minutes.  With cataract surgery an ultrasound probe goes into the slit to blast the cataract to smithereens so it can be vacuumed out.  Then a permanent lens is inserted. No cataract is removed before its time.  Dangers outweigh benefits and all that.  Not time for mine, yet.

We did go through the better one, better two drill until the doctor was satisfied I could see better through the cataract.  Thanks!  New glasses next week.  Purple with a little bling.

Which brings me to word verification.  Nobody likes it.  People with cataracts probably like it even less than nobody likes it.  Those numbers catch me up three and four times in a row.  Maybe bloggers who use word verification could give comment moderation a go.  We can wait to see ourselves in print.

Sherbondy Hill

My dad and his siblings were orphans, for all practical purposes.  For reasons I can’t know my grandmother married a man fifteen years older than herself, left home and lived with her in-laws while her husband travelled as a railroad man.  In every other year there was another baby, the oldest my father, until in 1915 my grandmother packed up her four children and came home to Ohio from Pennsylvania for the birth of the fifth.

My grandmother sued my grandfather, probably for desertion, and he posted bond in Pennsylvania guaranteeing his appearance in court to answer the charge.  Instead, he “jumped bond,” went west under an assumed name and died of consumption fifteen years later.  Letters from his daughters begging him to return were found in his wallet, revealing his original identity.

Were these not real people the story could be maudlin.   The family lived in the overcrowded childhood home of their mother, with her parents and those of her nine siblings still at home.  In her journal my Aunt Laura mentioned the terrible overcrowding that  sent them living in a succession of houses, moving when the rent came due.  Eventually four of the children were taken to the Children’s Home and from there our Uncle Bill was committed to Orient State School for the Insane.

My dad occasionally lamented the wasted potential of each of his siblings.  The absolute truth concerning my Uncle Bill, but the children, Bill included, played the hand dealt. 

   

Memories of the children’s’ lives during those years are scant.  My dad told one or two stories; Aunt Laura wrote about her brother Johnny as the director of the little band of children, feeding them bread soaked in coffee for their evening meal before bed, their mother absent. 

Aunt Laura set her hand to poetry, and I have a little self-published booklet of poems she dated from 1927 through 1964.  Most are love letters to her husband; she and Uncle Frank indeed were soul mates.

One of Aunt Laura’s poems, Their First Day Late, dated 1928, when she was seventeen, probably draws on a memory of her favorite brother and his favorite sister.

He with his wavy hair of brown,

She with her locks of gold;

They both stand at the schoolhouse door—

Each other’s hands they hold.

Her fresh white apron, her beauty displays,

But her face is bathed in tears.

The little fellow at her side

Cannot dispel her fears.

The big schoolbell had pealed its call,

The echo has died away.

The little maid and her brother

Are late, their first time, today.

They fear to enter the classroom

Where lessons have begun.

And they stand there on the threshold

Wishing the day were done.

Another poem Aunt Laura wrote in 1928 probably more accurately describes the schooling of her brother Johnny, and the uncles of the same age they grew up with.  “Pa” was her maternal grandfather, and a mean drunk from whom the women of the family hid the Four Roses bottle.

School Days

Johnny was a little boy

Who wouldn’t go to school.

He wouldn’t mind the teacher

Nor obey the Golden Rule.

He wanted to play hooky,

Like most the big boys did.

And got a spanking every night

When he was just a kid!

He used to go a-fishing,

Instead of going to school.

And when the days were long and hot,

He played in the swimming pool.

He’d come home late in the evening,

Scared and shivering, too!

Don’t you s’pose that you’d be scared

If “Pa” was up waiting for you?

Although he was spanked most every night,

And “Pa” warned him o’er and o’er,

Johnny scarcely set his feet

Inside a schoolhouse door!

John Lytle, my father, was born in Coalmont, Pennsylvania, in 1907. His mother brought the little family back to Akron, Ohio in 1915.  In 1924, days after his 17^th birthday, he left Akron a member of the United States Army. He spent nine childhood years in Akron, from the age of eight through sixteen.  They were rough and tumble years, deep in adventures with his uncles, his mother’s brothers his own age, and at the same time holding together the little family that was his brother and sisters.

Dad told of sled riding down Sherbondy Hill in the winters. The city was built on four hills, with many lesser hills joining the whole.  Sherbondy Hill, very near his grandparent’s home, leads up to a park today.  At the turn of the century it was paved in cobbles, the better for horses to navigate.  In the winter the snow covered road was impassible, except to sleds. The hill has a grade of almost thirty percent, with several turns.  In telling of their exciting rides down the hill Dad wondered that none of them were killed.  Of course they weren’t.   

Sherbondy Hill

Balls

In the dollar store one day Jan picked up a pack of eight ping pong balls, thinking the cats might like to chase them.  At first sight they were Toby’s balls.   Ryon’s exquisite paranoia will not permit him to touch one, but occasionally he watches Toby’s antics with trepidation, poised to escape if the little white sphere approaches.

Of course the little balls escaped to unreachable places, under the chest, under dressers.  Worst of all under the fridge where no grabber reaches.  The old folks in the house seldom went looking under dressers, and the ball numbers decreased.  Toby’s reprieve was the arrival of short children this summer.  They love him, he loves them and they often ferreted his balls out from dark places.

Jan was able to keep four reserve balls in the bag on the top bookcase shelf.  One day Toby begged and she reached up for the bag.  Only three!  She gave him one, but nobody would confess to giving in and releasing the missing ball to the ball monster.  Then Jan went around the corner and caught him, back paws on the chair, front paws stretched waaay over to the book shelf, and the last ping pong ball in his mouth.

Whenever we found an errant ping pong ball we put it in the little elfin ware vase on the mantle.  It held three nicely, and now Toby sat on the hearth and stared determinedly up, waiting for someone taller to see his need and release a wonderful ball.  Of course one day there were no balls in the vase that held three the night before. But, we had a mantle walking cat!

Toby was on his own.  If Emily or Laura would go searching with him he had ping pong balls.  If not, oh well.   Laura would always get down and look.  Sadly for Toby, she is in school all day

.

I eventually had to wonder what would happen if Toby had more ping pong balls than he could deal with at one time. Would he retreat, backing away from the onslaught of the mass of balls until cornered, he went under. 

A bag of a gross of balls brought out the best of Toby.  He reached under the bag, in case balls came out from there.  He patted the top of the bag, looking for the opening.  He held the bag firmly down with his left paw and used the right paw switch blade to slice down to the treasure. He only took one ball.  He thinks he knows where he can find the rest.

Clue:  they are no longer on the mantle.

Hearing aids

I got hearing aids so I could hear my granddaughters.  Before they lived here it didn’t bother me at all to tell a grandchild to speak slowly, speak clearly, speak up.    That’s what grandmothers do to grandchildren, for crying out loud.  Then everything changed, and little voices were here to stay.  I felt rude asking for repeats, so I did do some investigation.  Maybe they did need to speak up!  I asked Jan if she could hear them.  She could!

Laura’s ENT adventure tipped my scale.  Not only did her testing show improved hearing after those impacted tubes were removed, at every ENT appointment I read a sign on the counter that said Return Used Hearing Aid Batteries Here.  On inquiry I learned their audiologists prescribe hearing aids.  I signed on for the protocol.

My hearing was tested.  It was fine in the lower ranges and not fine in the upper registers and volumes.  Up where little girls talk.  And a couple of my friends.  And a trustee who talks down into a table full of papers.  And the television.  And speakers at meetings.  Often the person sitting next to me at meetings.  All those mumblers!

I still didn’t just jump in.  Pro’s and con’s remained.  Cost was a big con.  I had three choices.  The pink ear plug.  It cost, as my mother would have said, two and a half books of stamps.  I could not bear the thought of a pink ear plug.  I do know someone on whom I only saw a little tube into his hear.  I assumed he wore hearing aids, but, of course, never asked. I did ask the audiologist.

Hearing aids with the little tube come in two varieties.  They look alike, but have different abilities.  One set is adjusted based on the wearer’s description of sounds in the environment.  They cost three and a half books of stamps.  The other set is self adjusting.  They cost four and a half books of stamps.  A large pro was the thirty day right to return.  The audiologist told me a set lasts about five years.  I do hope they cost less in five years!

I parted with three and a half books of stamps and picked them up the first Monday of the month. I’ve been back to the audiologist twice for fine tuning and the gradual increase in volume to “normal.”  That, it turns out, is not something I would have liked on day one.  My brain has forgotten so many noises!  Later this week I have to stop by to be adjusted to ninety percent. 

I can hear grandchildren.  I can hear the trustee who talks to the table.  I tell Emily I can even hear WHAT she is texting.  HaHa, Grandma.  Did they cost too much?  Well, more than I can afford.  Worth it?  Yes.  I point out my new ears to friends who know they should hear better.  Just saying.  There’s no referral fee involved. I asked the audiologist.

Source

I want to be a vegetarian

Lots of cousins at our house today, for our third Thanksgiving of the week. Such a beautiful day, low forties, sun shining all over the sky.  No self respecting kid would want to be indoors after the grownups sent them out.

When they came in they broke out the cards while the grownups assembled the meal and eavesdropped on the table talk.  Caroline, the eight year old in pink, announced she really would rather be a vegetarian.  

Silence from her brother and her cousins.

“I want to be a vegetarian, but every night my mother makes meat.  Except for beans and greens and pasta night.”

It was another one of those nights; she did justice to her slice of ham.