Arvin Cowboy
Life in Rural Arvin in the 50's
Real Name: David L. Norris Gender: male Member Since: June 17, 2007 Last Signed In: April 21, 2009 Profile Views: 410 Blog Views: 1518 Walking to the Library Mr. Barle and the Hearing Aid Trick-or-Treat The El Rancho Theater The Law of Supply and Demand The Contact Lense Locking your Doors Arvin's First Community Center The 500 yard Dash Accident Momma and the Pillsbury Poppin Biscuits July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 
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The Contact Lense
In 1951, I was just five years old when I was diagnosed with astigmatism by Dr. O. Righellis O. D. here in Arvin. I remember the first comment on my patient card was that I was continually getting car sick. I had to go to his office, which was located on Bear Mountain Blvd. just opposite from the Arvin Congregational Church at north “B” street, once a week for eye exercise training. My right eye had become very lazy. Its view on the world was so out of focus that I was only using my left eye. I got the “four-eye” nickname very early in life.
Back in those days glasses were made from real glass and my lenses were very thick and heavy. Finally, Dr. Righellis found a source for plastic lenses for glasses that were far more expensive than glass, but they were lighter. He talked my mom into buying me the first pair ever sold in Arvin. We picked them up on a Saturday morning, right before going over to the Canterberry’s house for a birthday party. Because the fitting had taken so long, I was late for the party that was being held in their backyard.
Everyone was in the backyard trying to spank the birthday boy. He had grabbed one of his birthday presents, a baseball bat, to defend himself. Marvin had backed up to the edge of the house and was swinging the bat back and forth to keep his attackers at bay. As I was coming through the house, I heard all of the yelling and commotion and figured I was missing something good, so I ran through the kitchen and burst out the screen door just as he swung his bat my way. He struck me squarely across the eyes as I exited the doorway.
The impact knocked me back into the kitchen and broke my new glasses. The lenses cut me all of the way around both eyes and gave me two black eyes. There was tears and blood everywhere. Dr. Righellis later told me that had I been wearing my old glass lens glasses, that I would have been permanently blinded.
In 1960, as a freshman at Arvin High School, I went out for the football team. I played the position of guard and tackle on the “C” class team in practice and chief benchwarmer during the games. I knew I was chief, because they gave me the uniform with the Number “1” on it. As I remember it, we lost every single game that year. During football practice one day, we were having a practice scrimmage. As soon as the ball was snapped and I blocked the player opposite me, my right plastic lens on my glasses popped out of the frame and immediately disappeared into a sea of grunting bodies and feet. All of which were wearing football cleats.
I dropped to the ground and frantically tried to get everyone to stop, so that I could find my lens before it got broken. But to no avail, they could not hear me and continued to push and shove. Now, even back in those days, I was in the situation where I needed my glasses to find my glasses and my search was not going well. Finally, Coach Lukehart whistled the play to a stop and several players tried to help me search for my lens. We simply could not find it. It had totally disappeared from the face of the Earth. Finally, coach Lukehart said we had to continue practice and he motioned me to get off the field.
We had been practicing hard for more than an hour and so we were soaking wet in the Arvin afternoon heat. When I stood up, I felt something icy cold touching my belly inside my football jersey. Sure enough, there was my lens. It had fallen down the neck hole of my loose fitting jersey and since I had been on my hands and knees all of the time frantically searching, there it was, undetected until I stood up. I popped it back into the frame and continued with football practice.
Later that year, as a member of the AHS swimming team, I was at the Arvin Community Swimming Pool where the Arvin High School swim team met for practice and their home competitions. Coach Klinger was barking for everyone to get into the pool and start practice. As the girls ran out of their locker room one of the girls screamed that her contact lens had just popped out her eye and was lost. Everyone stopped and got down on their hands and knees. We searched the rough concrete deck to no avail, even though none of us had ever seen a contact lens and had little idea what they looked like. Roy Carlos even brought a broom over to sweep the area, but was told it would ruin the hard lens.
Hard contact lenses had just been invented and cost well over a thousand dollars so this was a big loss. She began crying because she knew that her parents were going to be mad at her for losing her new contact lens. I remembered my football practice experience and told her the story. I then said, “You don’t suppose ….?” Despite my best offer to help her search, she and two of the other girls ran back into the girl’s locker room. They came out a few minutes later, all happy. The errant lens had been found, a little higher than I had found my lens in football practice. While I was the hero that saved the day, not only did I not get to participate in the search, but I did not even get a kiss for my efforts. Such was the plight of a unappreciated, geeky, four-eyed kid throughout my high school days.
THE END
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