What Time Is It?
When I was taught to tell time
there were no digital clocks or watches. I was taught about
the short hand and the long hand. If the long hand was on
the right side between 12 and 6, we said so many minutes
“after” and if the long hand was on the left side between 6
and 12, we said so many minutes “til”. We were taught to
count by five's from 12 either left or right to the number
that the long hand pointed to. For example, If the long
hand was on 3 we would count by five's from 12 to 3 and
say, “15 minutes after”.
If you’re half my age I’m sure you remember telling time
this way. We still have clocks and watches with the round
faces and the two hands but “time telling “ language has
changed. We now live in a digital time age.
I wonder what my grandfather would have thought if, for
example, someone had said that it was one-forty-five. He
probably would have thought that either they couldn’t tell
time or their watch was broken.
We had a small wind-up clock that sat on the mantelpiece.
My grandparents had a large wind-up clock that had a
pendulum that clicked off the seconds. It would strike out
the time on the hour.
The largest time piece in town was the courthouse clock. In
those days it was powered by large weights that had to be
rewound every few days. The time also had to be corrected
often. For many years Mr. Harry Redwine took pride in doing
the job. Mr. Redwine is now gone and the old clock retired
even earlier. The courthouse now has an electric clock.
My daddy was a watch “fixer”. His desk top at home was
always filled with watches and a few old clocks needing
repair. There was no jewelry store nearby and no one else
was a watch repair person so Daddy got all of the business.
This was not a very profitable business. He just enjoyed
working with watches and clocks.
Daddy made sure that I always had a watch. It was usually a
“dollar watch” made by the Ingersoll Watch Company. These
pocket watches had a short life and were seldom repaired
since they only cost $1.00.
Later I owned a Timex watch. This too was a cheap watch but
it was a considerable improvement over the dollar watch.
John Cameron Swayze, a news correspondent became the
spokesman for Timex. I can still hear him saying, “ It can
take a licking and keep on ticking”. He was on early
television ads where the Timex was exposed to all kinds of
rough treatment and then shown to still be working. The
Timex is still around and I think it is the best buy in
time-ware.
Now that I’m retired I never wear a watch. I still watch
the clock to make sure I don’t miss some of my favorite TV
programs and to make sure I’m not late to church, but I
just live in the now as much as possible.