I was terrible at math, or as we called it in the sixties, arithmetic. That is, I thought I was until about the fifth grade. Then, I realized I couldn’t see the chalkboard without squinting. My seat was always on the back row. That’s ironic now because I’m only five feet tall. But I hit that towering height early and was taller than many of my classmates.
Mama and Daddy finally took me to the eye doctor after one of those school vision tests showed I was nearsighted. No wonder I couldn’t do arithmetic. I was happy to see better with my new glasses, but I hated those things. I wanted wire rims like the groovy kids. But Mama thought those were for hippies. I wasn’t allowed to wear hippy things, so I was stuck with square brown plastic frames. They definitely weren’t groovy. I only wore them when I had to.
Mercifully, those rims finally broke. But Mama still held her ground on the hippy look and insisted on getting those same frames fixed. So off we went to Eckerd’s drugstore, where they once had an eyeglass section.
What she didn’t know was that I had found Daddy’s old glasses, Harry Truman-style wire rims, pushed back in a dresser drawer. They were perfect and they were groovy. Daddy never missed them. I only wore the hated brown frames around Mama.
Feeling pretty smug, I sat on one of those swiveling bar stools at the drugstore while we waited for the repair. I pushed my luck when I stuck my legs out and started spinning around like a kid on a wound-up swing. Mama told me more than once to stop and act my age. I was in college by then. But I ignored her. That was a mistake.
I thought she had decided to leave me alone. I was home for Christmas, after all. But I was being undignified in public and that trumped Christmas visits.
There I sat, still spinning away when the girl at the counter said my glasses were ready. I didn’t care. Daddy’s wire rims were safely tucked away in my coat pocket.
Mama ruled. She didn’t even give me a glance as she walked over to pay the bill. I grinned like a cheeky five-year-old until Mama said sadly, but loudly, “We’re so glad we were able to get our daughter out for the holidays.”
I stopped spinning. Mama sucked all the smugness right out of me and wore it like a trophy. She headed to the door, smiling sweetly. “Come along now, honey,” she said.
Groovy had left the building.
