Some say that the eyes are windows on the soul. I know better. They’re windows all right, but we don’t see with them. We see with our brains: the eyes are just windows. How do I know this? Well, my little ‘windows’ aren’t wired properly to my brain. I am amblyopic. I have a dominant eye and an amblyopic one. The amblyopic one looks lovingly across the bridge of my nose at the dominant one.

In the great scheme of things, this isn’t all that important. Most of my life I could see just fine with my one good eye. True, people at a distance of more then 5 feet away thought that I was looking at something over their right shoulder rather than at them. But, I could live with that. I did insist that photos be taken on my right side as it lessened the effect. Also, I never allowed it to be said that I had a “lazy” eye. ‘Lazy’ eye inferred that if my eye could just get its act together, all would be well. If only.

As a small child, I was taken to the famous Dr. Hans Barkan in San Francisco where we lived. He operated on my eyes when I was 3 years old. That procedure was only cosmetic, it didn’t fix the eyes. That solution would only be somewhere in my brain, my twisted little brain.

After we moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles I was sent back one June when I about 8 years old, on my own, to see Dr. Barkan. Well, I wasn’t entirely alone. I was put on a plane by my Mum and sent to Oakland because my Aunt Fritzie was there. Aunt Fritzie was newly married to Uncle Paul. Uncle Paul was a paraplegic and they were struggling financially to get along. It was made clear to me immediately by my auntie that I was an imposition, a burden.

Oakland was a flat place with squat buildings interspersed by untended yards and vacant lots. It was nothing like my beloved San Francisco where we had lived in the only chalet on Van Ness street. Because my auntie and uncle didn’t have a car, we would have to take a ferry to the city and then several different forms of public transportation to see the doctor. Everything was done so grudgingly, that I soon decided that I wouldn’t ask to stay the summer (my original intent as I was very fond Auntie Fritzie). I was seen by Drs. Barkan and Jampolsky and given a pass for another year.

We followed our path back to Oakland. Auntie seemed lost in her world. I wanted so to stop at Fisherman’s Wharf and get a shrimp cocktail. I loved shrimp cocktails. I wanted to go Union Square and look at the shops. I loved looking at the windows at I. Magnins and the City of Paris. But there would no window shopping this time. She held my hand a little too tight and pulled me along as we went to the ferry.

It was a melancholy ride across the bay. Being June, the fog settled in and I couldn’t see either shore. We walked back to the little apartment like two strangers. When I lagged behind she grabbed my hand and pulled me along. The rest of my time there was fairly miserable relieved only by listening to the Grand Ol’ Opry on the radio with my Uncle Paul. That was standard operating procedure on Saturdays with Uncle Paul.

The next day, we took the bus to Oakland airport. I was put on the plane with an admonishment to the stewardess that I needed looking after. It was a propeller-driven plane and it was on the milk-run. It was to go to San Francisco after Oakland and then on to Los Angeles where my Mum would be picking me up.

I suppose that I should have been frightened when the plane approached SFO and it seemed to be a little too close to the water. We seemed to stop at the end of the runway, way at the end. Then, the pilot’s voice came over the p.a., “Could everyone please move to the front of the plane? We seemed to have our tail end in the bay. I think that if you all will come to the front and I gun the engines, we’ll get this baby going.” He was right. We all moved to the front, he gunned the engines and we were officially on land at SFO.

The stewardess came over to me as I sat back down. “You were very brave there. I think you’ve earned these,” and with that she took a junior stewardess pin and pinned it to my sweater. I was rather proud of that. I had been rather cool-headed, didn’t cry or anything. But, the adventure was far from over.

We landed in L.A. and the stewardess escorted me off the plane. “Your parents will be so proud of you, earning your wings!” “No, it’s just my Mum.” “Ah, well, she’ll be proud then.” “Hope so.” But, my Mum wasn’t there. We waited and waited. Finally, the stewardess took me down to the ticket counter. She explained the situation. The clerk called my Mum. There was no answer. “She must be on her way,” the clerk said. I nodded. A discussion between adults ensued. You know the kind where adults talk to one another as if the child weren’t there, or couldn’t hear or understand them. “We can’t just have her here.” Where can we put her?” “I don’t know, but she can’t stay here.” “How about if we put her in the lost baggage room and keep calling the mother?” “Yeah, I guess that we don’t have any choice.” I was taken to the lost baggage room. The clerk took a luggage tag, wrote my mother’s name on it, and attached it to the top button on my cardigan. “Now, don’t take this off, y’hear?” I nodded. He lifted me up and set me on the counter.

The counter was cold. I gripped the edges and swung my feet back and forth. The room was filled to the ceiling with all sorts of luggage. I wnated to look into those bags. I longed to have something to do. The clock on the wall ticked the minutes by. Every so often, the clerk would lean and check on me. I could hear voices talking about my situation. “I don’t understand it, how does a mother forget about her child?” “Did you call again?” “Hell, yes, I’ve been calling every five minutes!”

The hours ticked by. I got tired and laid down on the counter. When I woke up two hours had past and the clerk was shaking my shoulder, “Wake up sweetheart, your mother is on her way. We finally got a hold of her. You okay?” “Sure, a little thirsty maybe.” “I’ll get you some water” He brought back a folding cup of water. I wanted more, but didn’t want to ask. My Mum had placed me in another uncomfortable position. I would never get used to these situations, but it would happen with get regularity as I was growing up.

I knew that she would get there eventually that day. I never assumed that I would end up living in the lost baggage room. But, I couldn’t explain that to the people there. How do you say, “Oh, it’s just my Mummy. She’s always forgetting about me.”? They would have given me strange looks and I would have felt that I had betrayed my Mum. Any hint of betrayal of my Mum would ensure me long periods of silence broken only by bursts of recrimination. So, when she appeared at the door of the baggage room, I had a big smile, “Look what I got! Junior stewardess wings!” She lifted up the tag hanging on my cardigan and read it. Then, she took it off my sweater and tossed it in a trash can. “Let’s go, it’s going to take forever to get home.” I never asked her where she had been, but I regaled her with my story of the landing in the bay. She would tell that story to people for years afterward.