Getting my own “Rick Morain glasses”

I'm copying the noted Jefferson, IA, journalist, who has worn black horn-rimmed eyeglasses 64 years, on his early belief “they might make me look more intelligent.”

JEFFERSON, Iowa – When my great friend Rick Morain was a junior at the University of Iowa back in 1961, he went to an Iowa City theater to see a new, star-filled movie “Judgment at Nuremberg” based on the trials of German Nazi soldiers after World War II.

“Toward the end of that movie, a couple of actors portraying American newspaper reporters were featured, asking questions of the trial judge,” Morain recalls. “One of those reporters was wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, with black frames that were kind of thick and squared off. I said to myself, ‘You know, that guy looks really smart wearing glasses like that.’ I decided right then to get some of those glasses because they might make me look more intelligent.”

He’s been wearing glasses like that ever since, even though “I don’t think anyone has ever been convinced I’m intelligent by my glasses.”

His doctorate from Yale University in American Studies is stronger evidence.

Chuck Offenburger and Rick Morain, looking like real journalists. (Photo by Kathy Morain)

But it’s Morain’s eyeglasses that have long been the talk of Jefferson and Greene County, and they’ve certainly been his fashion calling card in Iowa’s newspaper industry.

He was editor and publisher of the Jefferson Bee and Herald for 45 years, before selling and “retiring” in 2012. However, 13 years later, he’s still covering local government meetings and writing a weekly column “Greenery” for the Herald. And he has now started posting his columns here on the Substack platform – you can read them by using this link – as a new member of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative.

As I’ve written here recently, I’ve had some big changes with my own eyeglasses.

Cataracts had slowly grown on both my eyes, and I had the cataracts surgically removed this past January. The outcome has been tremendous. I love having nearly 20-20 vision again (except for right up close) and how vivid and bright all the colors are. My ophthalmologist and my optometrist agree that I don’t need glasses except for reading at close range. They both said I can get by with a pair of “readers” or “cheaters,” as many call them, available in many variety stores.

In February, I picked out my first pair of those “readers” at the new Dollar Tree store in Jefferson, and I was shocked when the price for them was just $1.25! I didn’t know you could still buy anything for a buck and a quarter!

Alas, this past Friday morning, I dropped those glasses on the driveway and one piece of the frame snapped off. I was growling about that when I joined my pals the “Bean Boyz” for our regular morning session at Greene Bean Coffee in Jefferson.

“Isn’t it great, having that happen when you’re wearing ‘reader’ glasses?” said retired banker Doug McDermott, offering curious consolation. “When you break your glasses now, you don’t even have to get upset. You just go back out to Dollar Tree, and you can get new ones for only $1.25!”

So, after coffee, I went right out to the store, where I got two quick shots of bad news:

--Prices for “reader” glasses at Dollar Tree had been raised to $1.50. Damn Trump.

--One of the coolest things at that store, which is always busy, is that they previously had a hand-sized, pink, rubber pig on the check-out counter. Since the clerks are often out in the store stocking shelves, someone had used a marker to put a sign on the pig, “If you need to check-out, squeeze the pig.” It would squeal! When I noticed the pig was gone Friday, I asked the clerk about it. “It was stolen,” she said, rolling her eyes. Huh? Someone steals a marked-up rubber pig at Dollar Tree? Is our society in trouble, or what? Damn Trump.

But I regained my normal happy spirit when our friend Jacque Andrew stepped into the check-out line right behind me. She had gathered a basketful of Easter decorations and toys, including a pair of bunny ears for my wife Mary Riche to wear. “Will you take these home to her?” Jacque said. It struck me how you know you’re in small town, Iowa, when the person behind you in the check-out line at Dollar Tree hands you a pair of bunny ears to take home to your wife.

Plus, I had my first pair of “Rick Morain glasses” -- horn-rimmed, with black frames that are kind of thick and squared off. And because I was at Dollar Tree, I purchased three other pairs – all a little different -- to give me options in my eye ware fashion. All for $6!

My options in eye ware fashion right now.

It was all supposed to happen this way, you know? It must’ve been, because I’d also been invited for lunch Friday at the home of Rick and Kathy Morain.

“Those are exactly like my originals!” Rick said with excitement when I put on my new glasses. “Thick frames and almost square.”

He said he wore them that way “for nearly 50 years. Then my optometrist here in Jefferson, Dr. Terry Brown, told me the supplier couldn’t get them anymore. The last 10 to 15 years, I’ve had to go with a lighter black frame.”

But the horn-rimmed glasses were already well-established as his ID.

One of his favorite gifts in recent years was a new coffee cup from one of his sons, with photos of three grandkids around the cup, each wearing Grandpa’s glasses.

And now I’m wearing similar glasses, in tribute to my friend and journalism colleague.

“If you’re wearing my glasses, I guess I better start wearing a pair of penny loafers,” Rick said.

His wife Kathy offered a correction: “You mean saddle shoes.”

“Yes, saddle shoes,” he said.

Rick Morain and I have really got it goin’ on, don’t we?

“I’ve been four-eyes since seventh grade,” Rick Morain told me. (Family photo)

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