More Ramblings

The last few weeks I have been gathering the various writings that I have produced in the past to create a very personal booklet. In the process I was reminded of a number of small, but interesting events and activities of my childhood. Here is but one of them:

More Memories of Summers in Oregon

Sometime in the late 1800's it was determined that my grandfather, Robert Breckenridge Beatie, had to have his left eye removed. I thought that it was because of cancer, but my brother, the orthopedic surgeon, said that is was something else.

In any case, as I heard the story, granddad was handed a quart of 100-proof whiskey and ordered to drink it. All of it. When he was finished, they (whoever "they" was) told him to sit down in a straight-back chair and not to blink. At which time "they" proceeded to remove his left eye.

Granddad had a glass eye that he kept in a shot glass on the window sill above the kitchen sink. I never saw him wearing the glass eye. He always wore glasses with a smoked lens over his empty eye socket.