CHAIRSIDE

SECO, on a Personal Note

by Montgomery Vickers, O.D.

Columnist's note: I had all intentions of writing a letter to surprise a certain doctor whose grandson I met at SECO. At the same time, my editor was harrassing me for a column, and being the lazy person that I am, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Sorry to all the other docs out there, but Dr. Wright, this one's for you.

Dear Dr. Wright,
I just returned from SECO. No, not the Society of Evil Congres-sional Octogenarians, although I understand they have one heckuva convention in the Ba-hamas this time of year for "fact finding." I had a similar "fact finding" outing at the Optcom kegger at Champions in Atlanta.

SECO is the Southern Educational Congress of Optometry, or something like that. They never write out the name anymore, so it could be something like the South's E. Coli Organization for all I know.

I met this nice, young man there who said he was your grandson. I am certain he misunderstood you when you said, "Be an orthodontist," and optometry will benefit from dentistry's loss.

Was this his first SECO? I remember when three of us from PCO came down to freeload, I mean, NETWORK. I still wonder why the B&L rep ran us out of the hospitality room that first night. Maybe that trick Big Al did with his lighter and the pretzel bowl was a little over the top. I'm sure Mike never considered that bourbon wouldn't put it out.

Anyway, SECO was a blur of people this year. I hobnobbed with the rich and famous, and also with guys like me—poor, but lucky. Here were the highlights:

• I spent 20 minutes fussing at Dr. Stan Yamane about not being invited to dinner with the boys from J&J. He reminded me that the dinner was for AOA trustees and asked if I wanted to be one. Shoot, one dinner is not worth a year of hell to keep lazy bums like me moving.

• I met Dr. Magic. Did you ever meet Dr. Mark Horowitz in your travels? He's a good O.D., but even more important, a fantastic magician. My wife was ready to run off with him for making stuff disappear. I'll admit that he can make stuff reappear, too, but I can make the phone ring by just sitting on the john. How about that?

• Of course, the usual, or perhaps UNusual group of suspects were there. They provided the entertainment as they tried to teach me how to be "couth." I still can't believe I called the world-famous Dr. John Amos, "Dr. John Potter," who is also world-famous. Dr. Amos and his wife were gracious, but Dr. Potter would've kicked my butt.

• What about Walt Mayo? He pinned me with an Optcom pin. Now where I come from, getting pinned means you're going steady. Plus, he bought me a beer. In Vickersville, that's like donating a kidney or feeding the dogs for a week.

Whenever I started falling into the trap of thinking I was hot stuff when O.D.s patted me on the back about Chairside, I ran into my buddy Rex, from back home in West Virginia. It was nice to speak my native language with him as we wrassled over the last Bud Light in Atlanta. He reminded me that I was mud.

So when I go to a meeting like SECO, Dr. Wright, I leave feeling very encouraged. For one thing, I meet young doctors, like your grandson, and know our future is in great hands. Then I see the wild personalities scattered through our ranks, like Dr. Magic, and I know folks like us could run a hot dog stand and still make a living.

I wish you and your grandson all my best. God Bless,
Monty

Mud or hot stuff? You be the judge. Write to Dr. Vickers at reviewofoptometry@jobson.com, or Review of Optometry, 201 King of Prussia Road, Radnor, PA 19089. 

(Honey, I do that all the time. Remember that anniversary ring you got me? Gone in a week.)

I hang out with my friends and realize, shoot, if he sees himself as a swing dancer at 1 o'clock in the morning at SECO, I might just be able to go back and see myself as an optometrist Monday morning in St. Albans.