One of my secret dreams (one that doesnt include the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders) is to be an optometric educator. Thats right. I can use this column not only to give you a laugh but to teach as well. Through my years as a columnist, I have shared so much with you that you are now ready to learn something more important than any other lesson: how to write a great optometry song.

First, remember that a song has to have truth as its center. An example would be my touching lyric about people who take their prescription and buy their eyewear someplace else:

 

Bright are your eyes that shine

As you shop about.

I hope your eyelashes

All do fall out.

 

Kinda says it all, you see.

Next, you need to write songs that speak to your own faults and weaknesses. You cannot be afraid to comment upon the problems that you can create yourself. For example, check these words that chastise the optometrist who thinks that fixing glasses is beneath him:

 

I know doctors should do doctor things, like fixing eyes that ooze.

But, those glasses pay for your eastern Caribbean cruise.

Not to mention your plan to buy all that duty-free booze,

So, why, oh why, wont you tighten up those screws?

 

As you use your music to make the world a better place, you must also challenge the monsters that lurk around trying to damage our profession.

This verse is a good example as I go on the attack against low-paying vision plans:

 

Lady comes in with seven kids,

All myopic and all scholars.

Lady whips out a membership card,

All I get is 14 dollars.

 

Even the holy and unassailable national optometric organizations must understand that they are only as powerful as their dedication to the eye doctor in that small-town practice somewhere in Americas heartland:

In the office where I work,

I get a phone call from a jerk,

Demanding money for glasses for the poor,

But they give it to a senator.

 

Use your newfound optometric musical ability to salute your optometric heroes:

 

I like Runninger, I respect Kabat.

Learning from them becomes a habit.

Melton and Thomas, those two thugs,

Sound like theyre taking all those drugs.

Some CE speakers Id cover with feathers and tar

But, I love Joe Barr!

 

Even mundane office tasks and upkeep may deserve a mention in your symphony of sight:

 

The days schedule keeps on swirling,

The patients come in with a rush.

But this doctors stomach is a-twirling,

Cause the office toilet will not flush.

 

So, take a deep breath and write your own optometric song. It is important that our future O.D.s learn that not only are optometrists the finest eye doctors on Earth, but we are also poets and artists who sing for justice, freedom, and that second pair of glasses.