Friday, June 02, 2006

Tom Wrinn, mystery man, wearing my glasses


Tom Wrinn
Originally uploaded by Brite light photos.
LAKEWOOD, New York - What was it about the eyeglass industry in the early 1960s?

Could they have designed a more strange-looking frame?

I remember right after graduation that they guys coming back from Vietnam had those cool-looking wire rims - which caught on like wildfire after that.

When I left for California in 1970, I had a pair of wire rims (we called them John Lennon glasses) and by then the U.S. Army had (you guessed it) switched to the plastic frames sported by Tom in this photo and in my yearbook photo, too.

By the way, a few weeks ago I changed my profile picture from the one that is in the SWCS yearbook. I just couldn't look at myself another time in that photo.

Instead, I put up the one you see, taken in a photo booth in downtown Jamestown in 1969 (maybe in Woolworth's). I call it my 'thug mug' and sometimes show it to my students in class, asking them if they recognize who it is. They almost always say that they think it's a member of the IRA. For the record (and the NSA reading my blog) the only IRA I'm personally familiar with is a tax deduction.

Has anyone track down Tom Wrinn? I want to know what kind of frames he's wearing or if he broke down (like I did) and got Lasik surgery.

More on that later...

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