My Green Visor
This entry was posted on 1/26/2008 4:09 PM and is filed under Random Thoughts.
All of my adult life, I have worn a green visor. You say that sounds a little strange. Well, it is. It started rather harmlessly in law school. The lighting was terrible in the library and about half of the students wore green eye shades or visors. Even Professor Howard, who taught Constitutional Law, wore a green visor. His was of a higher quality than the cheap ones we bought at the University Book Store.
During law school, I used to get severe headaches and they seemed to start in my eyes. I figured it was the glare from the lighting and religiously wore my green visor. It turned out the headaches were migraines, but I didn't figure that out for 30 years. But, I was convinced that the little green eye shade permitted me to work longer without getting a headache. When I graduated, I just kept wearing my visor.
When I went to Germany in 1966, I took a couple of visors with me, but they didn't last. The cheap plastic cracked. I searched all over for visors, but with no luck. Visor in German is visor (but they pronounce it "veezor"). Finally, I found a pair of clip-on, flip-up sun glasses. I would clip them on my glasses and flip them up half way and use them as an eye shade. Any port in a storm.
Wearing a green visor has inherent problems. Someone will come into my office and say, for the hundredth time, "Where's the card game?" Finally, I started responding with, "Sorry, but we are not giving out prizes today for originality of thought." It seemed like it was usually the women who would suggest that I needed garters for my shirt sleeves to make the outfit complete.
In 1984, I was assigned to Command and General Staff College (C&GSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I used to know why we were sent to the school, but I can no longer remember, nor care. I remember that our section had a pretty good flag football team. I also remember that so many players got seriously injured that it was the last year the C&GSC played flag football.
Joe Conboy, for whom I worked in Vietnam, was the Post Staff Judge Advocate. He invited me over to visit his office. When I got there, he took me around and introduced me to his officers. Every one of them was wearing a green visor. I was really impressed. I was so impressed that it never occurred to me that I was the subject of the joke. You would think that when I saw the 4th or 5th captain in a visor that some light might have come on. They all had a good laugh at pulling it off.
Sometime in the late Eighties, the little green visor started disappearing from the stores. Of course, the small office supply store was also disappearing and Staples and Office Depot couldn't figure out what I was talking about. I am probably the only guy who was excited about going to Las Vegas so he could buy some green visors. Well, it is a myth. They didn't even have them in Vegas. What a rip. I would go into sport stores and they would say, "Sure, we got visors." Then, they would bring out some strange looking visor that said, "Myrtle Beach." All I wanted was a little old dark green visor, like every accountant wore back in the 1930's.
I even made some effort to get the material and have them made (I could corner the market). But my efforts to find the right green plastic failed. Then one of my friends, Howard Bushman, found two visors at an estate sale. They were beautiful. They had a copyright date of 1924 on them. Of course, the elastic in the bands had died. I cut off portions of the band and sewed them together. They worked great for a while. Then, I took them to a tailor and had new elastic put on. I kept one at the office and one at home. Now, being retired, they are both at home.
My green visor has been to me like a kid's sleepy blanket. I was lost without it. Sometimes at work, friends would hide my visor and just watch me circle my office and come unglued. Since they were friends, they never let it go too far.
I figured out my headaches were migraines when Newsweek published an artist's conception of different headaches. I looked at the orange ball of fire surrounded by blackness and said, "That's my headache." Well, after I figured out I had migraines, it made it easier to communicate with people why I didn't want to do something. But, I still had the headaches. Then, Motrin with Ibuprofen came along and I was saved. My migraines were very polite. They always let me know when they were going to visit. And, at the first signal (which was hard to miss), all I had to do was pop a couple of Motrin and the migraine never captured me.
Wearing a green visor my entire working life (and also at home) is quirky, but when you think of all the crazy people out there, I don't think that wearing a green visor rises to too high above the ridge line.
Life is good. My wife, Carole, is delighted that I have solved my migraine problem. And, as for my green visor, she even helps me look for it when it is lost. With the kids grown up, I am now her only child.
