Thursday, November 19, 2020

A Miracle of Second Sight - weekly column

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Miracle of Second Sight

 

Sight is a miracle. Sight restored is even more so.

 

Last week I had occasion to drive a friend to his ophthalmologist in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

 

I was worried about the sudden deterioration in eyesight (he seemed to be calmer about it, but then he is quietly devout and a better man than I), and grew more worried as the afternoon wore on in the doctor's waiting room, but finally he appeared. The ophthalmologist had made a diagnosis and performed the unplanned laser surgery then and there,

 

We drove away, my friend in those funny black plastic eyeshades, and searched out road coffee for the drive back to Texas.

 

The first chain fast-food place we found still wore its building sign but was wrecked and boarded up.

 

The second place, the same.

 

The third was a hit, although we had to navigate around a truck and crew lifting up a new sign. That’s what you see in Lake Charles this autumn, the restoration of signs, along with continued cleanup. Lake Charles is still a mess after two major hurricanes this summer, with wreckage everywhere, street signs gone, houses blasted and empty, shops blasted and empty, work crews and volunteers along some streets, nothing along others. 

 

As we sat at a window table with our coffee I noticed that my friend’s eyes were no longer dilated, and suggested that he try to read something. So he lifted his paper cup to his eyes and with great joy read a famous text of our time, “Warning. Contents may be hot.”

 

And my friend’s eyesight grew better by the minute. Wonderful!

 

When I walked him into the opht…hmmm…eye doctor’s office he could not see. When he walked out three hours later he could.

 

Miracle. Laser surgery. Miracle. Ophthalmologist. Miracle.

 

A humorous bit is that on the way my friend was remonstrating with me for missing turns: "Can't you see the sign? I can't see the signs, but I'm blind!"  In the event, I could not see the road, street, and advertising signs because most of them had been blown away by the hurricanes and some had not yet been restored.  Our conversation, then, was much like the two elderly gentlemen on a train in a Jeeves and Wooster story:

 

1st Gent: "I say, is this Wembley?"

 

2nd Gent: "No, this is Thursday."

 

1st Gent: "So am I - let's have a drink!"

 

Life is good.

 

Peace,

 

-30-

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