It was a clear day when Louis Tomososki's science teacher mentioned that a partial solar eclipse would be visible from their hometown of Portland, Ore., that afternoon.
So after classes let out, Tomososki, then 16, found Roger Duvall, his friend since the fourth grade and a fellow science buff. The pair ambled up the steps to their high school's baseball field and planted themselves about 10 feet behind third base.
They stood and waited, squinting toward the sky. Sure enough, the teenagers eventually spotted what they had been looking for: a partial eclipse of the sun.
“And yeah, there it is! You could see the moon taking a bite out of the sun,” Tomososki remembered thinking then.
That was more than 50 years ago. Both men, now 70, say they wish they had known about the long-term harm that afternoon would do to their eyesight
“We didn't know right that second that we damaged our eyes,” Duvall said in a phone interview Sunday. “At that time, we thought we were invincible, as most teenagers do.”
Both estimate they had glanced up for about 20 seconds or so — each using a different eye. Immediately afterward, Tomososki's right eye and Duvall's left eye bothered them slightly.
“We had looked down at the ground and you're still looking at part of the eclipse like it's imprinted in your eye,” Duvall said.
[Everything you need to know about the Aug. 21 solar eclipse]
It was only through separate eye exams later that both men learned they had permanently damaged their retinas. For Tomososki, his “good eye” compensates for his “bad” one when both are open. When his left eye is closed, however, he sees a “scrambled, whitish spot” through his right eye.
