My eyes have always been sensitive to light. It hurts. From a very young age I wore special glasses with darkly tinted lenses.
This was in the 70’s.
Ireland.
Few people owned sunglasses unless they had brought them home from a trip to the States. I really stood out with my dark glasses.
Kids made remarks, it’s what kids do. Children are cruel, heartless things who know no better.
However, adults made remarks as well, strange as that seems. ‘Kid thinks he’s Roy Fucking Orbison,’ they often said. Occasionally it would be ‘kid thinks he’s Elvis Fucking Presley.’ But the vast majority of comments in my memory were about Roy Fucking Orbison.
Also, the voices, as I can recall them, were all male. Maybe that’s how it was.
I knew of Elvis, of course. My mother had a thing for him. She often told me about crying in the cinema watching the newsreel of him having his hair shaved when he was conscripted.
I had not heard of Mr Orbison. In fact I never heard a song by him until I was well into my teens.
I felt kinda disappointed in myself for actually liking his stuff.