A History Of Watch Wearing

I've never been much of a watch wearer. I love having the time close, but always end up loosing my wrist watches before I can really get used to wearing them. What follows is a history of my watch-wearing and as thrilling as that may sound, you may be surprised at how similar it may sound to your life.

When I was a pretty young kid, my mom bought me my first wrist watch. I loved the large numbers and ticking second hand. The only major problem with this watch was that it was not water proof. As a child I spent more time in our swimming pool then on dry land. Needless to say, this first watch did not stand the test of my aquatic life-style. After a while the minute hand stopped rotating, then the hour, and then the whole thing just stopped ticking.

In high school, I was gifted another, more shiny and expensive watch for my sixteenth birthday. Again, I tried valiantly to keep it on my wrist and never take it off. I did pretty well for about a year. Then I took ceramics. I had to take my watch off every day as I emerged my hands and arms in wet clay. It only took about two weeks for me to leave it in a ceramics apron, never to see it again.

When I moved out of my parents house and moved up to Seattle, I thought I'd give it another go with the old wrist watch. I found a good watch, and while it was no Rolex, I wouldn't have to pay for Rolex repair if it stopped working. I liked the watch-it had a green canvas band and a nautical looking face. This watch lasted the longest on my wrist-surviving a total of two years of use before I eventually took it off in a hotel, never to see it again.

With the advent of cell phones and my increased dependency on them, I've not missed the ticking time on the end of my arm. The only major inconvenience I can tell about being cell phone reliant for the time is that I don't always have my phone on me all the time. This proves a problem in the car, because for whatever reason my Nissan did not come equipped with a dash clock. In that case if I really need to know the time I have to tune into a radio station until they give the time.

So that's the incredibly interesting history of my and my watches. I'd be curious to know if cell phones have cut wrist watch sales any, or if dedicate "watchers" won't give up their hand-sized time tellers for more modern and often less accessible clock on their cell phones. Good watchmakers still hone their craft and pass it on to their apprentices. I think I'd be sad to see wrist watches die out all together. If nothing else, this next generation needs to know how to tell the time with something other than digital numbers.