something I think about kind of a lot is how little certain optometry tools for testing eyesight have changed over time. I've been going to the eye doctor for over twenty years and the test to see how clear the farmhouse (or the hot air balloon) has hardly changed (hardly any of them have changed, but that one stands out because the graphics do feel outdated). Optometrist equipment lasts a long time, too! I think this kind of adds to the mystique of the experience; new machinery or technology can't necessarily outsmart the optometrist.
As an art historian who has also been dreadfully shortsighted since childhood, (minus 9.0 for god’s sake!), I really enjoyed reading this and share your love of a good optician - I’ve had so many over the years and they’ve always seemed to me quite extraordinary people. And the images they now make of your eyes, and the way they can interpret them like clusters of galaxies - amazing. Plus getting an eye test has sometimes been the only ‘time off’ I’ve had when super busy, which makes me enjoy it all the more, slightly sleepy in the big chair in the dark.
Kate, I read your piece with delight. I too love going to the eye doctor -- until just recently, my optometrist was an older man with a walrus mustache who still used a typewriter (well, his wife did) and all the old, non-electronic equipment. This piece sent me down a rabbit hole searching for the "near card" he used to use -- one of those cards with archaic but charming sentences to test close-up reading. I can't find it. But now I'm a little obsessed with the near card as literary genre? https://share.google/images/8DWVFtjNRjiqcG64Y
My first eye appointment, the doctor is shining that light deep into my eye and inches away when he asks: "So, who do you like better? Ginger or Mary Ann?" I don't know if he was checking pupillary action or panic response or what. Maybe that was a standard part of the exam at the time. I've always thought it a strange thing to assume I had an opinion about, even if he was right. What did he see back there?
something I think about kind of a lot is how little certain optometry tools for testing eyesight have changed over time. I've been going to the eye doctor for over twenty years and the test to see how clear the farmhouse (or the hot air balloon) has hardly changed (hardly any of them have changed, but that one stands out because the graphics do feel outdated). Optometrist equipment lasts a long time, too! I think this kind of adds to the mystique of the experience; new machinery or technology can't necessarily outsmart the optometrist.
As an art historian who has also been dreadfully shortsighted since childhood, (minus 9.0 for god’s sake!), I really enjoyed reading this and share your love of a good optician - I’ve had so many over the years and they’ve always seemed to me quite extraordinary people. And the images they now make of your eyes, and the way they can interpret them like clusters of galaxies - amazing. Plus getting an eye test has sometimes been the only ‘time off’ I’ve had when super busy, which makes me enjoy it all the more, slightly sleepy in the big chair in the dark.
Kate, I read your piece with delight. I too love going to the eye doctor -- until just recently, my optometrist was an older man with a walrus mustache who still used a typewriter (well, his wife did) and all the old, non-electronic equipment. This piece sent me down a rabbit hole searching for the "near card" he used to use -- one of those cards with archaic but charming sentences to test close-up reading. I can't find it. But now I'm a little obsessed with the near card as literary genre? https://share.google/images/8DWVFtjNRjiqcG64Y
My first eye appointment, the doctor is shining that light deep into my eye and inches away when he asks: "So, who do you like better? Ginger or Mary Ann?" I don't know if he was checking pupillary action or panic response or what. Maybe that was a standard part of the exam at the time. I've always thought it a strange thing to assume I had an opinion about, even if he was right. What did he see back there?