Legally Blind

It was increasingly difficult
to navigate my life. Where a normal person would see two
headlights coming from a car at night, I would see perhaps
eighteen. I couldn't read my computer with my nose against
the screen. I couldn't recognize my youngest son's face
from across a small room in San Diego. Couldn't read a
book, couldn't watch a movie and couldn't even enjoy pornography
unless they would start producing it in brail.

For much of last year I've
been traveling with a seeing-eye Jew from Brooklyn, Sam
Markowitz. I've been teaching him to write world class-copy
(boy he's good!) and he's been helping me cross streets
like a little old lady and making sure I use the men's
room instead of the ladies.

But, The Nightmare Is Now Over Due To

The Genius Of Doctor Larry Patterson!

He performed the delicate
surgery I needed in Crossville, Tennessee, and now that
my two eyes have healed I can see almost perfectly! Isn't
that a miracle? That a man like Larry Patterson can change
a person from legally blind to almost 20/20 vision in
a matter of minutes?

By the way, did you know
anything beyond 20/400 is considered legally blind? They
mostly don't even bother measuring beyond that. Here's
what that means: if you have 20/20 vision and you are
looking at a car 400 feet away, for me (before surgery)
to see what you were seeing I would have to walk until
I was only 20 feet from the car. That kinda limits a guy's
act, doesn't it? And guess what? I personally know a man
whose uncorrected vision is 20/1000. Wow! I wonder what
he thought about the world before he got his corrective
lenses?

And so, after 20 years,
I pretty much stopped writing this newsletter. It wasn't
the logistics were insurmountable (they weren't), it's
just somehow I didn't have the spirit to do it. Oh. I
could write for clients, OK. Maybe better than ever. You'll
see some samples of my recent work before you finish this
letter. It's silly but I just sort of consider this letter
sacred and I just didn't want to grapple with it when
I am any way impaired. (I'd be a treat for a shrink, wouldn't
I?).