The rib cage pain has subsided and my vision is stabilizing. It is a bit blurry in the morning and gets more in focus as the day goes by I think it is due to healing in the eye and the inflammation going down.
My overall vision issues in my life, I think are part of makes me who I am. Without much vision in one eye, I was never allowed to play contact sports in high school. No football, lacrosse or even baseball as there was a fear of being hit in the eye by a hardball.
My lack of vision in my left eye also kept me out of the Army. In October of 1971 when I was eligible for the draft lottery as a new 18 year old, my lottery number was 19. Essentially I won the draft lottery. I was pretty sure that within the next year I would get notified by my local draft board to report for an Army physical to see if I was healthy enough to be drafted. And in 1971 and through 1974 the Vietnam war was still going on. Troop deployment was starting to go down but the war was still in full swing.
I was opposed to the war and had no desire or intention to find myself in the military and in Vietnam. But I also knew that if called to report for an Army physical I would do so and in all likelihood, fulfill any obligation required to do.
And one year later in the fall of 1972 I received that letter from the government requiring me to report toFort Hamilton in Brooklyn for my Army physical. I was by then a sophomore at Boston University. I had to fly home just to report for the physical.
To say the least I was nervous. I did have a very impressive letter from my eye doctor reporting my near total blindness in my left eye. He told me I should have no problem receiving a medical deferment, but you never know for sure.
Long story short; I spent the day as a guest of the Army getting a battery of aptitude and medical tests. My blood pressure was through the roof and they did confirm my real bad left eye vision. They were going to isolate me for three days and keep checking my blood pressure. But when I pointed out to them how bad my vision was they sent me home. A few weeks later I was given a draft classification of 4F unfit for service due to medical reasons.
Still Monday July 13, 2020
I’m a news junky. I have been for as long as I can remember. As a real young boy I loved watching the news. I couldn’t wait to hear the news of the day from Walter Cronkite. I remember waking up at the crack of dawn in the early 1960’s to watch the Mercury space launches. Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom heading off into space. And of course the launch of John Glenn.
I also remember standing on the corner of my street a couple of times in a hope to get a glimpse of presidential candidate John Kennedy and a few year later a glimpse ofPresident LyndonJohnson.
And I’m still a news junky today. Only problem is, there is just so many news channels and correspondents to watch. I don’t know what to watch first. Back in the day there were just three main national networks CBS, NBC andABC. As for TV stations back in 1960 when I was just 6 years old all we had in New York was channel 2 CBS, channel 4, NBC channel 5 WNEW, channel 7 ABC, channel 9 WOR, channel 11,WPIX and channel 13 WNET. That was it. Over the air TV. Reception was by outside antenna and cable TV was years away.
I watched as much as possible and news was a big part of my TV world. I actually watched more than I should have and my parents even thought I was addicted to the boob tube. But it was my window on the world. I watched all the regular shows of the day and watched a lot on NY Yankee baseball but I really loved the news.
