I am at that age when it's tough to see. A decade ago, I was forced to obtain reading glasses. Then, a few years later, came bifocals. Next trifocals. Now, it's contacts. For someone whose vision for more than thirty years was 20/20, it's tough to be reduced to stumbling about in the early morning until my eyes are in. (You parents will know of what I speak.) I have this fear of being caught out on the road, alone in a Days Inn, abandoned, with no contact lenses, no glasses. I'd be lost forever! It's tough to see.

It's tough to see certain people, contacts or not. A friend who lives in Manhattan complains that, in New York, residents quickly develop “the Manhattan stare." Confronted daily by depressing sights, harassed by panhandlers, street people, the mentally ill, “you learn to walk past…