My earliest recollection of actually seeing a timepieces was when George Meyers would pull his gold pocket watch out of his pocket, snap the lid open and yell at his wife, Ida Mae, to get him some hamburger.George only ate raw hamburger. It had to be fresh; or, it was the last handful in the icebox when the twenty-five pound block of ice had melted. He used his pocket watch to tell him the time of day though he never had to be any place so his handful of raw meat might be at any time of the day.
His pocket watch was a railroad pocket watch like those railroad engineers used to keep the trains on time to avoid horrible accidents.
Back then; I believe the wristwatch had yet to be invented because I never saw one until I had enough money to buy a regular wind up Bulova or a Benrus at the jewelry store. I suppose there were other watches around but these were the two brands I saw when I was very young.
For several years I would buy my wife a new wristwatch at the jewelry store on her birthday. She still has three of them and she uses them—one is more dress-up than the others so she wears the right watch for the right occasion.
When I was in the Army, I wore a black-faced wristwatch and still have it somewhere. I was speaking at a college in Washington when a medium from Portland, Oregon spoke to me after my talk—it was like a press conference; and said she wanted to do a “reading” on me.
I had not worn the watch for a decade or longer but she mentioned that black faced wristwatch—how that works is beyond my imagination but she did say I had a black faced wristwatch and had worn it.
I was surprised then and still am today that it took a medium to remind me of that wristwatch with the black face. I will have to start thinking about looking for it. I wonder where it is?
I wish I had asked her about old George Meyers—I wonder if eating raw hamburger was responsible for his departure; or perhaps his pocket watch stopped working?
I don’t think George would have traded his pocket watch or his raw hamburger for all of the digital watches in China.
Nowadays I have a desk drawer full of wristwatches. Most of them are Timex. When I was growing up and went to jewelry stores they didn’t sell Timex watches.
I think I began buying Timex around the time John Cameron Swayze, a most credible newsman; was their official spokesperson, for a series of torture tests with that famous tagline — Timex: Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.