ESOPHORIA

In October of 1965, I received a telegram from the U.S. Government. It said, "Greetings". Please report to the Federal Building in Cincinnati on a date in November for the purpose of taking a physical exam to determine if I was fit to join the armed forces.

Dutifully, I showed up along with a hundred or so of my future friends. We were lined up, stripped and sent through a maze of stations to see if we could hear, see, smell and breath. A beating heart was essential.

We carried a report card with us from test to test. At the eye tests, I had trouble with one in which you had to say on which number a ball which had been moving, was sitting. I couldn't tell. The ball kept moving. The testing person wrote on my report card the word ESOPHORIA. I didn't really notice.

When we were finished and were turning in our report cards, I was told to take mine into the office of the doctor in charge. The word ESOPHORIA was now circled. I set the card on his desk and stood there. I was wondering if this meant there was something wrong with me and they didn't want me. He stared at me for several minutes then wrote OK on the card and told me to go back to the check out point.

I later found that the word meant that my eyes tended to move inward. It makes it difficult for me to see conversely moving objects. Who knew? Several years later, I asked an ophthalmologist about it. He said my eyes were constantly refocusing themselves to overcome the problem. He said its a problem that they don't see much since the invention of the light bulb. I've had glasses resting on my nose ever since.