My name is Ronald Romany and I’m a dispensing optician doing adjustments and fittings for frames for people’s glasses.
I live in Barataria but grew up in Diego Martin in a big family, number six of five boys and three girls. Six or seven of us going to four or five different schools in my father’s car. I was the youngest in the car. I used to lie down on the back dash sometimes, looking out at traffic behind us. It wasn’t an air-conditioned car but I still have fond memories of the morning drive.
I worked at my father’s supermarket for approximately about five years and then got into other things and finally ended up at Optometrists Today in 2001. I’m a dispensing optician by practice, not by qualification.
I didn’t stay on with my dad because his father passed away and there was a bit of a family dispute over the supermarket. It had to go to court and that caused the whole thing to collapse. We’re still a close-knit family, despite everything, all my cousins and uncles and aunts.
I don’t want to say I’m happily divorced because it sounds bad...but I’m happily divorced. I’m not afraid of getting married again. If I find the right person.
I don’t wear a tie when I’m not at work. Jeans, jersey and slippers and I good.
If I have things on my mind, I like to take a long drive somewhere. I leave Barataria and reach Mayaro, Toco, San Fernando. Listening to whatever’s on the radio. I’m a gas-brain by profession.
Right now, I’m trying to put down roots. But when you see the price of land, the cost of building a house, you ask yourself, “Well, how is that going to happen?” The HDC (Housing Development Corporation) is a lottery system but I find it should be first come, first served. That’s one of the worries that drives me to go for a long drive. At least I could afford to put gas in the car. If they take away the gas subsidy, well, Boy! That would be stress.
I have a girlfriend but I won’t name her. To name her might get her in some trouble.
It have times when you sit down and doubt things but I believe in Heaven and Hell. You have to question yourself as to where everything came from [if God] didn’t make everything. The question about who made God, if God made everything does come up. But I just don’t answer it. I wouldn’t question God. Because he might get vexed.
I go to visit my sister in Canada often. I’d love to move there: you could afford your own home, there, if you work hard.
I have been wearing glasses since I was six years old and I’ve been doing my own adjustments since then. So I didn’t need a lot of teaching.
When I pick up a pair of bent glasses, most of the time I can figure out how they got damaged. I could see if somebody hit you or if you walked into a door. I’ll look up at people and ask, “Did you sleep on your glasses?” And they look down and smile and say, “Yeah”.
People might come in with glasses they themselves broke, and they patch it back and, as we touch it, it “break”. And then they say, “Hey, you owe me a frame!” Is very see-through but people really try to get away with a weak skulls like that. And get on bad and make noise. And it never works. We stand our ground and they go away eventually.
The best part of the job is meeting people. In some cases, it’s also the worst thing about the job! But being able to help somebody escape the irritation of wearing twisted frames is very satisfying.
To me, a Trini is somebody who makes the best of whatever God has put in front of them.
Trinidad & Tobago is my home country. I love it very much. I wish it could change to how it used to be up to when I was a teenager, when you could go out and leave your house open and your neighbour would watch it for you. Rather than watch what you have.
Read a longer version of this feature at www.BCRaw.com