[Jeff Higgins]

No, not "shooting glasses" as in the protective eyewear we all don while shooting, but "shooting with glasses", as in corrective lenses.

I managed to make it to darn near 62 years old without the need for corrective lenses, except for cheap drug store "readers", and even those I didn't always need for reading or close in work. Well, about a month ago at the range, I had a "moment". I literally could not make out the target at 100 yards through the aperture sights on the two rifles I was working with (my Ruger #1 in 6.5 Swede and my Savage 99 in .300 Savage).

I had to go home - I simply could not see well enough to shoot. I couldn't believe it. Before I left, I tried switching to left handed, using my left eye, and all was well. But I simply could not do it with my right eye. I was pretty distressed - you guys know how much time i spend at this, and how important it is to me. And, just my luck, it had to be my right eye.

I shoot a lot, and I shoot quite often (I'm sure that surprises no one). I got pretty retrospective - how did this come on so fast, so unexpectedly? When did I first notice it? Well, over the course of that retrospection, it occurred to me that I had been working with some scoped rifles for some time. But - and this should have been a clue - I found myself pretty drastically altering the adjustments on the ocular bells on scopes I have owned for decades, and had left the same for decades.

But, anyway, it snuck up on me, it's here, and it's real. So, for the first time in my life, I am now wearing corrective lenses. I guess we call them "bifocals" or "trifocals", but there is no "seam". They just have a "gradient" from up close vision to distance vision. Only on the right side, the left is essentially just a piece of glass with no correction.

This is going to take a lot of getting used to. I took both of those rifles to the range yesterday, and a few revolvers today. I found the revolvers much easier, but I never really noticed a problem with them anyway, at least not what I ran into with the rifles. It's amazing how critical head placement is behind those peep sights. *Sigh*... this getting old thing ain't for the feint of heart... now it's affecting one of my true passions in life...