On the day that President Kennedy was killed I had an early morning patient. The day before I had a call from New York. It was Phil Hill. In his pit crew on his F1 car was a fellow that was one of my patients. As I remember, Phil and some of the F1 drivers were on a ferry in Switzerland crossing a large lake. Dan Gurney was standing next to Phil and a dot appeared on the horizon. As time passed and the vessel came closer, Dan told Phil the name of the vessel. Phil asked him how he knew that and Dan told him he could read the name on the boat.
That did it..........Phil was having his trouble identifying anything about the boat and Dan could read it. Phil told my patient about the experience and it was suggested that he should come to me for a vision exam. After confirming that he would be at my office at 8AM the day after the call, I cleared out my schedule and was ready when he arrived. Following the case history we did a screening and at that time I knew there was nothing wrong with his distance acuity. Later in the test he was able to read the 20/10 line correctly. He had ben duped by an expert but pride, and some doubt, required that he have a test to confirm that his vision was adequate to survive in the ultra competitive arena of F1.
He was beginning to lose his ability to see fine detail at the reading distance and I did solve that inconvenience for him. We had time to discuss many of his prior driving experiences, the cars in his life and music.
I have more than one reason to remember that day.
FREUD
