Back in my business traveling years, I carried a briefcase and, just as often as not, I wore a suit. My long-idle briefcase was last used when I sold my first house and bought this one. I should shred the paperwork that’s in there from the mortgage I paid off fourteen years ago.
The card and photo are extremely significant for me. They were from the office of the world-class Boston doctor, now retired, who performed the cataract replacement surgery that restored the sight in my left eye. It had suffered a spontaneous and very serious retinal detachment three years before.
The name of the exceptionally talented world-class Boston doctor who successfully re-attached the retina is in the note on the right. What he did for me was unprecedented, as I later learned from another ophthalmologist. However, it took a long time for the eye to heal sufficiently to tolerate the cataract surgery.
So, for almost three years, until the day before my 47th birthday, I was legally blind in my left eye. I could read only by literally holding something close enough to touch my eyelashes. That’s why the prescription for the interocular lens is a very powerful +13.
My need for the briefcase gradually diminished, to the point where I was carrying it around more out of habit than from need. It was later replaced with a USB flash drive on a lanyard I wore at work.
Today, I have two suits, one gray and one black. Each was purchased in something of a hurry for an upcoming event.
The gray suit (“grey” if you’re in England) came from JC Penney’s Stafford line of men’s clothing. They didn’t offer a 43 regular, and a 42 would have been too small, so it’s a 44. I bought it to wear at a niece’s wedding, more than ten years ago. I last wore it when attending a funeral service last year, for someone who died from the same cancer that, thanks to world-class Boston doctors, I no longer have.
At last year’s National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards Dinner I wore the gray suit. At the time, my only suit. This year I wanted to be more formal.
Checking on what it would cost to rent a tux, I instead went to Brooks Brothers and bought the black suit. It’s a bit shiny for my taste, but a better fit, being a precisely sized 43 regular. Whenever the next funeral comes around, mine or someone else’s, I’ll wear the Brooks Brothers suit.
While packing for the trip to Columbus, I realized the exterior pockets of the suit were stitched closed. Fortunately, something else I had bought in preparation for the trip were a pair of excellent Fiskars folding scissors, TSA-approved for carry-on luggage.
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Before heading downstairs at the hotel for the awards dinner, I snipped the threads that were sealing the pockets and opened them up. Here’s the official portrait photo of the dinner, taken before the lights were lowered for the presentation of the awards.
I’m in back with Joe and Hilarie Staton, on the far right. Colleen is in the center, 2/3rds of the way back, in white. Two professionals and an aging fanboy. We were pretty much it in representing the comic book industry at the event.
