It would have been sometime around third grade for me as well. I was very nearsighted, which they discovered one day when my grandmother was taking me somewhere on the bus in Columbus (a regular occurrence). While we waited at the bus stop, I asked her how she always knew which bus to get on. She soon figured out that I couldn't see the name or number on the bus. I had no idea they were even there. So my mom and dad made an appointment with an optometrist and I soon had my first pair of glasses. Unlike some kids, I was truly thrilled with them, and I still remember raising them as I'd walk along a sidewalk, or while I was looking down, to savor the difference. I fell in love with sharp vision then, and one of my doctors a few decades later said that most "myopes" share that obsession with sharp vision.
So it was glasses from that day on, throughout childhood and school years, and I needed a change of prescription probably every couple of years. At around age 25 when I was ready for another checkup, my dentist recommended a highly regarded optometrist whose office was in the same building (the California Federal Building on Wilshire, as it was known then, don't know if it still is). So there I went, and this guy turned out to be an early sort-of-high-profile proponent of soft contact lenses AND the then-new sleeping lenses. I wasn't at all interested then, but a year or two later his pitch had won me over and I let him give me a trial. I couldn't believe it -- it was almost better than putting on that first pair of glasses as a kid, and I couldn't wait till my pair came in. I was mainly a contacts wearer for some years after that, but they eventually stopped allowing them for sleep, and I later grew a little tired of the daily ritual. So I began alternating with glasses -- and skipping ahead to the present, you all have only known me in glasses. But I still have contacts and wear them occasionally. When I do, it feels so fantastic that I wonder why I don't just make it a habit again. At this age, though, the need for reading distance and even computer (and piano) distance make it more complicated and bothersome, and to this day I have yet to resolve all of that to my satisfaction.