Geezer with a Grudge: Minnesota Eyesight

May 23, 2008

Minnesota Eyesight

I don't like to jump on the "Minnesota sucks" bandwagon, because I think driving skills are declining all over the country, but Minnesota is far too accommodating to particularly heinous driving handicaps. Eyesight, for example.

In 40 years of driving, a half-dozen states, and a dozen licensing tests, Minnesota is the only place in the bunch that thinks I see well enough to drive without corrective lenses. Thirty years ago, Texas suggested that I have my left eye removed, if I wanted to drive without glasses, since that eye is practically useless at any distance. Just add an extra mirror to the car, poke out the eye, and they'd have taken off the restriction. I chickened out and went for the glasses. Minnesota is far more accommodating. I've passed this state's vision test twice in the last six years. I failed that same test in Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, California, Colorado, and Indiana. Inspires confidence in our system, doesn't it?

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The Geezer Story

I stumbled upon this column name (Geezer with a Grudge) almost 20 years ago, in 1999. The first Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly editor I worked with, in late 1999, complained that the magazine was getting no mail and the editors wanted to know if any readers were still out there. I fired off a sarcastic note, as a joke, intended to provide a little humor and some feedback. He published it as an article and later called me to say he'd received more mail on that letter than he'd received in the past year! I followed that with an offer to write a monthly column attempting to piss off a particular section of the magazine's readership to see if that tactic would generate some mail.

It did, probably more regularly than the magazine wanted at times, and I wrote a monthly column for MMM until the magazine died in 2018.

I plan to post an occasional old Geezer article into the blog, followed by short comments about the current status of my perspective on our activity/sport/vehicle of choice.