Living on opposite sides of the country didn\u2019t offer much opportunity to get to really know my grandparents. My parents moved from the east coast – where they had both grown up – to the west coast while I was young. My dad got a job with a firm that he would ultimately work for until he retired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were infrequent visits, but between visits the distance was much more of a barrier, only a few decades ago, than it is now. Regular long distance (expensive) phone calls, and passing the phone around. It wasn\u2019t the telegraph, but it sure wasn\u2019t FaceTime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I didn\u2019t know my grandparents well, but I did know things about<\/em> them. My maternal grandfather had been a machinist. His wife, my grandmother, had raised a large family and was a proverbial \u201cforce of nature\u201d to be reckoned with. I knew my paternal grandmother had worked in the county courts, and that my paternal grandfather was a watchmaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have early memories of his desk – full of the specialist tools of his trade – in the office and workshop in the front room of their New Jersey home. But I was too young to be interested in \u201ctalking shop\u201d with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He gifted me a watch, many years ago, and I remember him saying that to him a watch was no more or less than the quality of its movement. Everything else, he said \u201cwas just complications.\u201d And that if you took care of a good watch, it would outlast you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before cell phones (and later smart phones) became ubiquitous and meant nearly everyone was carrying “a watch” in their pocket, I carried a pocket watch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I liked that my pocket watch didn\u2019t sit on my wrist and interfere while I was typing – something I spent (and still spend) a lot of time doing. When I started riding motorcycles, I liked that my pocket watch didn\u2019t sit right where my riding jacket sleeve closure wanted to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And – if I\u2019m honest – I liked that carrying a pocket watch was \u201ca little odd,” and more than a little anachronistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When my phone<\/a> started fitting in my pocket, for a while it replaced my pocket watch and was the only time-piece I carried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I went back to carrying a pocket watch for a bit after seeing H4<\/a> at the Royal Museums on a trip to London, but it didn\u2019t stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At some point, I bought a wrist watch. I don\u2019t remember exactly when, or what prompted the purchase. Maybe Dawnise bought it for me. In any event, things have… escalated\u2026 since. These days I find myself with more watches than I have wrists to wear them on, which I think is a rough definition of a collector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This all came to mind while I was looking at the details of a watch – its movement, really – and was stuck that it was accurate to \u201c5-6 seconds per day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you know nothing about watches, that probably means nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you do<\/em> know something about watches that probably strikes you as either “pretty good,” or “pretty terrible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n You might see it as \u201cchronometer accuracy<\/a>\u201d or \u201cmuch worse than a cheap quartz watch,\u201d which are typically accurate to a few seconds a month<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turns out both of these things are true, so \u201cyou\u2019re right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compared to a mechanical watch, a quartz watch is more convenient, more accurate, more reliable. Not to mention less expensive. And aside from changing a battery every year or so, they demand basically no maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mechanical watches are something of an anachronism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And to me there\u2019s something fascinating, almost magical, about a mechanical watch movement. They\u2019re delicate. Intricate. Mesmeric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Springs, wheels, balances, escapements, all doing what they\u2019re supposed to do, many times each second. Self-winding movements, with their semicircular rotor, are even more fascinating- reminiscent of our fascination with perpetual motion machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, just look<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Still not impressed? Look closer<\/a><\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first mechanical watch I bought was a cheap open heart with an exhibition caseback – \u2018cause even a cheap movement can be captivating to watch. I still have it, but I haven\u2019t worn it in\u2026 forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then I\u2019ve become more discerning about what I buy and wear. They\u2019re something of an eclectic mix – often from small makers – the only thing they have in common is that they grabbed me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadly, my grandfather died before I really \u201cunderstood\u201d watches. I sometimes wonder – as I did while writing this – what he\u2019d think about the pieces I\u2019ve collected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Living on opposite sides of the country didn\u2019t offer much opportunity to get to really know my grandparents. My parents moved from the east coast – where they had both grown up – to the west coast while I was young. My dad got a job with a firm that he would ultimately work for … Continue reading “Ticking Away…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1720"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1769,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions\/1769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}