Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

When the average monthly salary in Romania was around 2,500 lei, my mother bought me a pair of eyeglasses that cost 475.

That was almost a fifth of a monthly income. And yet, without hesitation, she paid every little penny so I could walk out of that optical store wearing a pair of Rodenstocks, German engineering at its finest. The frames were greenish-brownish (but mostly greenish, like my eyes, one could say), with spring hinges, which at the time were practically science fiction. The store itself was posh, located in a now long-gone boutique nestled in the building where the Marmorosch Hotel stands today in Bucharest. (That detail is entirely irrelevant to the story, but it shows location, location, location, as my wife – the Real Estate super professional – says.)

The lenses were Zeiss, which meant they were not just lenses, but optics. Top of the line, not just in Romania, but anywhere. These were not simple tools for seeing better. They were a statement. A declaration. Rodenstock frames with Zeiss lenses – they made me look almost smart and distinguished.

Now, as most married people eventually find out, marriage doesn’t just come with a partner. It’s a package deal, which includes an entire extended family, often with one or more small humans with sticky fingers, endless energy, and highly experimental mindsets. In my case, that meant two young boys.

The older one, around four years old at the time, had already developed a fascination with fixing things. Or breaking them. Or fixing them by breaking them, it was hard to tell. He was always tinkering with something. He had what one might generously call a scientific disposition, the kind that involves a screwdriver, a toy truck (nowadays, it’s a full-sized truck that always seems to need fixing), and a very handy uncle (no, not me) who always shadowed. For educational purposes.

One sunny afternoon, this little engineer-to-be decided to study gravity. With no warning, no preamble, he launched into his experiment by snatching the Rodenstocks clean off my face and hurling them out the open window.

According to the American way of numbering, we were on the third floor (second floor by European standards).

The glasses performed exactly as one might expect under the influence of gravity and Newtonian physics. They plummeted, accelerated, and met the sidewalk with a sickening crack. The boy beamed. Radiant. A look of Newtonesque triumph illuminated his face. “It fell!” he announced, delighted. Mission accomplished. His grandmother and aunt (my wife) were equally delighted, marveling at his cleverness, his initiative, his curiosity.

I was… speechless.

My first thought, I confess, was to follow the trajectory of the glasses by launching the boy after them. Instead, I stood there frozen. Then, quietly, I walked down the stairs, dignity leaking out of me one step at a time. I found the frames shattered on the pavement. Beyond saving. I picked them up carefully, like one might gather the remains of something sacred. My shattered pride also lay at my feet.

I then remembered something my mother had told me long ago, when I was two or three, just beginning to wear glasses. She had crouched down to my level, looked me in the eyes, and made a promise: “If you ever break your glasses, no matter how expensive they are, I will never be upset.”

And she never was. I was a quiet kid, not prone to chaos. I didn’t break many pairs. Glasses were my constant, my silent accessory. They framed my life and my face, both literally and metaphorically. A kind of personal trademark and fashion statement.

But when I brought her the shattered Rodenstocks, I saw something shift in her face. Not anger. Not disappointment. Just… sadness. She held the pieces gently in her hand. Examined them. And then she asked, in a voice so calm it hurt: “What did your wife and the boy’s parents say?”

I swallowed. “They said he’s clever. Curious. They praised his initiative and inquisitive mind.” She sighed. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what I was afraid of.” Then she added quietly, almost to herself: “We’ll get you the cheapest pair now. No use wasting good money on science experiments.”

Fast forward thirty years. That boy is now a father of two. His oldest son is five years old. A bright, eager child with the same spark of scientific curiosity in his eyes. The same restless hands. The same innocent tendency to throw things, just to see what happens and where they’ll land.

One day, not long ago, I had the little one in my arms. We were having a rare moment together. And then he looked at me and my glasses with those sharp, calculating eyes. It was just a glance. But I knew in a moment I had seen that look before. Thirty years ago. I recognized the telltale early warning signs. The mental gears were turning. Yes, there it was: that irresistible urge to test the limits of aerodynamics and breakability.

Without thinking, I gently but firmly lowered him to the floor. A little too quickly, perhaps. Everyone in the room looked alarmed. But the glasses stayed on my face, intact.

Sometimes, wisdom is just knowing when to put the child down.
[As my uncle said many times, wisdom comes from experience – good and bad].