Dr. Arthur L. Bennett

A number of men and women who lived in Buffalo have influenced my life by their example, although they didn’t know it at the time. One such person was Dr. Arthur L. Bennett.
A long time ago, Dr. Bennett was my ophthalmologist. Mother thought him the best eye doctor in Buffalo. One day, I must have been about seven or eight, she told me that the next morning, we would go to see Dr. Bennett to have our eyes examined. It was a long trip from the Fruit Belt to his office on Linwood Avenue, and as Dr. Bennett did not accept appointments but worked on a first-come basis, we had to start when it was still dark outside. We always hoped to be first in the waiting room in the doctor’s home but almost never were. When Mother and I went through the heavy front door, the front parlor (the waiting room) was dimly lighted. In those days, Dr. Bennett did not allow patients to read while they waited for fear of eyestrain; the eyes he examined must be rested. A secretary sat at a central desk with a shaded lamp and took names. With nothing to do, I wondered about the woman. How did she ever get up early enough to receive the patients? Why didn’t she talk to us? Did she have any little girls? Nor were the other patients forthcoming; immersed in whatever they were thinking, they sat in various poses and barely spoke to their companions. A child has a hard time sitting perfectly still; because I was inclined toward hyperactivity, it was torture.
Mother told me to listen for the sound of a door shutting somewhere in the big, silent house; that meant the great man was coming at last. I heard it and so did the secretary; she called the first name on her list. Finally I made it into his large examining room. It had probably been a dining room or second parlor when someone else lived there. I found him sitting at his desk in the only source of real light in the room, which highlighted his presence and drew me directly to his side. Two other things about the room remain in my memory: the mysterious, impressive, sometimes shrouded ophthalmological instruments scattered about the room, and a pair of closed doors that I thought must lead to the rest of the house.
As I took my place in the patient’s chair close to Dr. Bennett, I saw a white-haired man of average height with a round, protruding stomach. He wore pince-nez spectacles with a neck cord; the lenses, I remember, were sparkling clean. He dressed carefully, no jacket, but the whitest of white shirts, a tie even I could tell was of rich quality, and fine trousers. I remember him—although it might be a false memory—wearing suspenders. His shoes gleamed with polish. Even as a child, I was impressed by his impeccable appearance. He dressed as if each eye examination was AN IMPORTANTEVENT for himself as well as the patient. Smoking a cigarette while he worked gave him a further sophistication in my untutored eyes.
I was in awe of Dr. Bennett and thus was shy. I dreaded to say much because I feared I would bother him. My mother had drilled into my head that I mustn’t bother adults—especially superior people like Dr. Bennett. Although he maintained a correct professional reserve for the time, he was kind to children and young people, and his interest in my eyes and eagerness to find out how they were working made me the center of his attention. Wonderful. Sometimes he would answer questions if I could get up the nerve to ask them. One time I brought up his strange glasses, and he explained what they were, pronouncing the name with French gusto, which delighted my ear and increased my admiration for him. He spoke another language! (If anyone cares, “pince-nez” sounds like “pass neigh.”) Once I told him some years later that I was going to dances now and did he think it would it be all right if I took off my glasses for the occasion? He caught my teenage angst over having to wear glasses, and smiling said, “Yes, but be sure to wear them at all other times.” I, of course, obeyed.
His method was to examine my eyes and after each step, make meticulous notes in what was probably the Palmer style of handwriting, with lovely loops and twirls. One day, I watched him lean forward as he drew my right eye in his book because, he mentioned when he saw my interest, my eye had a small black dot. It was clear to me even as a child how important those written observations were to him, and when I got older, I figured out that his painstaking notes were a way to catch and hold the truth. Dr. Bennett was to make a meticulous record of my vision and its changes over the course of more than twenty years.
After my mother’s examination was over, we went down the front steps and started walking toward Main Street. We’d hop a bus and go downtown for lunch and a movie. I felt all was right in my world (as limited as it was.) I’d just been examined by the best eye doctor in Buffalo, and I was in his expert hands in case anything bad happened to my eyes. He knew everything.