Sequim Gazette Editorial and Letters to the Editor

"After the age of 50, we spend most of our time replacing parts."

So, at least, said a dentist as he repaired one of my teeth a good 10 years ago in response to my complaint that my body's warranty seemed to have expired.

Since then, indeed, various organs, vessels, structural members and connections have succumbed to gravity's implacable pull - despite Walt Disney's promise that if I wished upon a star my dreams would all come true.

For once, though, I can say that aging can be wonderful and I'm not celebrating my waxing wisdom or deepening duplicity.

Today, teetering on the edge of my 62nd birthday, I can see better with my naked eyes than I have in six decades.

On June 15, I had my second successful surgery for cataracts in as many months.

I once thought cataracts were among the worst of aging's aftermaths. I remember a great uncle who backed his Dodge over a next-door neighbor because he couldn't see the poor devil through his cataracts.

I also recall my mother's cataract surgery in which the lenses of her eyes were removed, forcing her to wear glasses so thick that she resembled one of "Far Side" cartoonist Gary Larson's frogs.

In my case, my going slowly blind resulted in a cure that produced farsightedness that measures 20/15 - meaning that I can discern from 20 feet what people with supposedly perfect vision can't see until they're 15 feet away.

It's only from a deep sense of my vocal, not visionary, shortcomings that I don't burst out with an appropriate phrase from "Amazing Grace."

What my ophthalmologist did - first to my right eye, then to my left - was to make a small incision in my eye above the iris, remove the lens with which I was born and replace it with one that gives me sharp distance vision.

Total time in Olympic Medical Center's day surgery unit for each operation was about three hours. Bandages came off the next morning. Recuperation consisted of common-sense precautions and dosing myself with eye drops for the following month.

For the next three weeks, I'll wear drugstore magnifying specs - like what Theodore Geisel called Goo-Goo Goggles in a Dr. Seuss book - for close work. After my eyes adjust to their adjustments, I'll be fitted with prescription reading glasses.

Maybe I'll choose the half-lens style that won't make me look any younger, just more perspicacious.

The most disconcerting aftereffect is taking my glasses OFF to see at a distance, not putting them on. I grope for my spectacles when I awake each morning only to be startled that I'm seeing perfectly well without them.

Since returning to work a week after my second surgery 16 days ago, I've encountered others who have had the veils of their vision similarly parted. They're unanimously pleased with the results.

My purpose in writing about my experience is to calm any fears others may have of the operation. No surgery, of course, carries no risk, but I think the benefits far outweigh the risks.

It's also only fair to warn the younger folks around me that it's not just the experience and deviousness of old age that will out-match their energy and enthusiasm.

It's my gimlet glance and eagle-eyed stare you'd best fear, kids.



Why all the racket?

While I'm being crochety (and I am, aren't I?), am I alone in dreading Independence Day for all its bangery and boomery, much of which will continue far into the 5th of July?

Sure, I know about "the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air" in "The Star Spangled Banner."

The siege of Fort McHenry that Francis Scott Key described in what would become our national anthem,

though, occurred during the war of 1812 -- 23 years after the United States won its independence.

Historical nitpicking aside, people need look no further than last week's announcement by the National Fire Protection Association that it had mounted a campaign against what it called "consumer fireworks" - those set off in back yards, beaches and streets across the country - as the cause of avoidable trauma and needless fires.

And I recall how helpless I have felt when one or another of my dogs cringed and cowered at every firecracker and bottle rocket, imploring me with mute eyes to make the cacophony stop.

You can read about fireworks' popularity and how to enjoy them safely in reporter Matthew Nash's articles on page C-1 in today's Gazette.

But as for me, if you want to have a blast on July 4, take your celebration to another location.

It's called Texas.



Pleeease?

The Save Our Pool forces in Port Angeles and environs triumphed in their bid to create a new taxing entity - a metropolitan park district with the same borders as Port Angeles schools - for the announced purpose of maintaining the former municipal William Shore Memorial Pool.

They won fair and square, albeit using Burma Shave-style signs that featured some of the worst poetry outside rest room walls.

Those signs and others have disappeared but not the billboards of a swimsuit-clad tyke screwing up his face under the entreaty to "PLEASE" save the pool.

Voters apparently heeded his appeal, but any parent knows that this child isn't asking for anything but to relieve his bladder. His expression fairly screams, "I gotta go potty!"

Pool saviors, pleeease get rid of the billboards before the kid comes to life, has his inevitable "accident" and inundates the Morse Creek canyon.

You'll also diminish the discomfort of all of the prostrate-challenged, ballooning-bladder drivers on U.S. Highway 101.



Jim Casey is the editor of the Sequim Gazette, but modern medicine hopes someday to have a cure.