Lord of the Rings
Growing up, it wasn’t hard to spot the rich kids at school. They often wore thrift store clothes, although their shoes were always new. They usually had glasses on, but somehow looked cooler in them than the rest of us. Their lunch boxes were both dent-and-bologna-free. Of course, they bought lunch anyway just never ate it.
But it wasn’t so much the kids that gave their social standing away as much as their parents. They reminded me of the mom and dad from Leave It to Beaver, but without all the smiling. They often picked up the kids after school in audacious cars with foreign sounding names. The dad always had a suit on and the mom a long, slender cigarette in her hand. Their hair, their skin, their teeth, all perfect. And--this was an important detail—both wore a Timex wristwatch. A Classic for him. A Ladies Timex for her.
I knew then what I had to do to achieve success at an early age. The first thing was to commit to frowning. There wasn’t much I could do about my cowlicked hair, blotchy skin or the fact my parents wouldn’t let me smoke. But I could put a watch on my arm.
It seemed anyone who was anyone had the best-selling watch in the world, a Timex. The rumor was General Patton wore one. Come to think of it, maybe it was on his dog, Willie. I remember seeing a photo of the astronaut who drank Tang with a wristwatch on, and it looked like he had a Timex. I couldn’t make out the name, but the hands said it was 12:01 and clock on the wall behind him said 11:55…it was a Timex!
Accuracy aside, according to the ads, a Timex was difficult to break. You could drop one off the Empire State Building, run over it with a steamroller, hit it with a jackhammer—and a Timex would take a licking and keep on ticking. My friend Frankie Teets said his dad had to flush his down the toilet to get it to stop because it ticked so loud. He told me it never would go down all-the-way, but it did quit making noise by the next morning. For many years afterwards, I wondered if it was still there.
When I finally saved enough of my allowance to buy one, I wore it all the time. It was the Value-Priced model, not waterproof like Mr. Teets’. Mine was semi water-resistant, which meant it might survive a few raindrops. I couldn’t wear it and shower, so I learned how to sponge-bathe. It was a skill that served me well though more than a few droughts, i.e., water shut offs, through the years.
But it wasn’t a liquid that took out my first watch. It was the winding, which I did, obsessively. It was the first of many such neuroses in my life: Biting my upper lip, forgetting to put the toilet seat down, pretending I’m George Clooney. The many hours of watch winding cost me dearly, my net worth taking a massive hit when I broke it. It was a lot for a nine-year-old to process.
For a long time, I didn’t wear a wristwatch. I went through a pocket watch phase that was short-lived; unfortunately, lasting one day past the return-item deadline. For part of my life, I decided TIME belonged to the PEOPLE and tried not to pay attention to it. After losing jobs due to showing up late, I figured out the PEOPLE weren’t giving me a paycheck and at least set the clock correctly in my Ford Granada.
Then the cellphone became a thing. It was at first a novelty, then a necessity, then an annoyance. But it and its digital time were always there. The phone’s got smarter and as a result, most civilizations eradicated the need to remember anything. The unplugged still had options, spending many, many thousands on a traditional Rolex vs. not spending many, many thousands on a traditional Casio.
Enter the i-Watch, the i standing for impossibly intricate. It was straight out of Get Smart, a miniaturized phone and a powerful computer as well. In fact, its computer had more processing power than the roomful of them used to land Apollo 12 on the moon. Of course, you’d need to pack some gasoline and a portable generator to keep it charged past lunch.
This smart watch could email, text, listen to music and look at pictures the size of postage stamps, which might be helpful if you had the eyes of Clark Kent. It also did something the Timex had trouble doing: It kept accurate time.
This device is a Godsend for seniors. It has a timer you can easily silence when it rings to wake you from your nap. It has an app to tell you about your appointments (but not a reminder app to tell you about your reminder app). It can take your EKG, heart rate, blood oxygen levels and once you see the results can keep you calm by playing soothing nature sounds or the music-like noises of Kenny G.
My doctor, or my nurse practitioner who is really my doctor, claims a lack of physical activity at our age is the number two cause of early death. My smart watch, therefore, is prolonging my life by prompting me to close something called my exercise rings. If you’re not familiar with this concept, it’s from a torture application surely first developed by the Nazis. It displays these colored rings that close when it detects enough motion, exercise, movement. It is impossible to ignore; you can’t even check the time without the activity ring progress glaring back at you. Its existence certainly is clear violation of my 8th Amendment rights.
Nevertheless, I pay attention to, but seldom complete, these rings. I do try, and I’ve surely lost a few pounds in the effort, mostly by running back to the watch I forgot to put back on. It is waterproof, so like my Timex I seldom take it off and then only to charge it. To not be wearing it and lose the resultant ring movement would cause me unbearable stress. And stress, as my nurse practitioner advises me, is our number one killer.
Copyright Rusty Evans, History Department Head, 2022