Messenger: Tale of the clip-on sunglasses connects one generation to the next (2024)

YUMA, Ariz. — My father’s sunglasses are the stuff of legend.

Like many of the Messenger men, he has bad eyesight. Dad has always worn co*ke-bottle glasses with big horn-rims. His sunglasses of choice for most of my youth were clip-ons, the big ones that can flip up, which is cool if you’re a Major League outfielder but not so much if you’re the kind of guy who wears his clip-ons while sporting plaid Bermuda shorts, black socks and white tennis shoes.

But I digress.

If I had to wager a guess, I’d say my dad has had 75 or so pairs of clip-ons in his life. That’s because he loses them or, occasionally, puts them in his back pocket and forgets they’re there and then sits on them.

“Where’s my sunglasses?” he’ll ask, before the kids and grandkids start scouring the house. Usually, they’ll turn up. Often, they’re in the car.

That’s where I was on Friday, headed to the airport early in the morning. We were going to Arizona to see our latest grandbaby. I was on Interstate 270 before I realized I had forgotten my sunglasses. Unlike my father, or perhaps because of him, I have always worn prescription sunglasses. I never lose them, unless you count that time at the beach when a rogue wave plopped them right off my face and buried them in the ocean forever.

The problem with prescription sunglasses is that sometimes you forget you’re wearing them. I have been to a handful of evening Major League Baseball games where I got to the ballpark when the sun was still out, and by the third inning, everything got dark. Oh yeah, I’ll remember, I am wearing my sunglasses. Can’t see the game with them on; can’t see the game without them. If only I had chosen the clip-on route.

But I digress.

Taking a weekend trip to Arizona without sunglasses is not wise. So after we arrived, I told my wife we were going to have to stop at a drugstore to buy some clip-ons. At this point, it’s important to mention that my father, now 82, has advanced beyond his clip-on phase. He wears those big sunglasses that are large enough to just fit on your face right over your other glasses. I swear those things could block out an eclipse.

I suggested to my wife that perhaps I should just get a pair of those. She wasn’t pleased.

We found a Walgreens in Maricopa, on the way to Yuma, where my grandchildren awaited. I found a pair of clip-ons that were suitable and not entirely embarrassing.

It struck me that this is how the generations are passed from one to another. Each generation is, at some point or another, embarrassed by something that their parents do. When my oldest children were in middle school, for instance, they used to ask me to drop them off a block away from school. That’s because I drove a beat-up car. The frame under the driver’s seat had been broken, and a previous owner welded the seat directly to the floor, losing several inches of height.

Not wanting their friends to think their dad was only 4 feet tall, my kids asked for the drop-off away from a crowd. I complied, knowing that I had similar stories about my father.

At family gatherings, we share such stories, not so much to make fun of the subject of the story but to relive our shared history as we move from one generation to the next. History repeats itself.

Increasingly, I have taken over from my father as the butt of most of the family jokes. Such is my burden, payment for making fun of my dad’s clip-ons. On Monday, before we left Arizona, my son, a big, burly Marine officer who is the father of three girls, was painting two of his daughters’ toenails with all the care and expertise of the finest pedicurist.

“Hey, Dad,” he said, while changing from pink to purple polish, “remember that time we dressed you up as a girl?”

That was my cue. I grabbed my clip-ons and headed for the airport. Some stories are meant to stay in the family vault.