"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff."
- The Doctor
Doctor Who, "Blink"
As a kid, I loved getting the newspaper. We got the Stars and Stripes in the Philippines, and I went straight to the comics. One of the comic strips that I followed regularly was Dick Tracy. Tracy was a detective with a distinctive yellow hat and yellow trenchcoat. He solved mysteries and put the bad guys away, in part with the help of his state-of-the-art wristwatch that had a two-way radio built into it. I was amazed by everything his watch could do, and I wished there was such a thing in real life. I couldn't know that decades later, the smartwatch would be invented. Wireless Advocates, where I worked until recently, sold them at their kiosks. They didn't look like Dick Tracy's watch, but they could do some of the same things that may or may not be related to telling the time.
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| Image by XaMaps on Adobe Stock |
Watch
When I was younger, I wore a watch on my left arm, which was how I remembered left and right. They were not connected to satellites at that time, so we had to get the time from the radio or other sources (such as a clock on the wall) when we were setting them. Sometimes, as a mark of our friendship, my best friend and I would synchronize our watches, or set them so they were exactly at the same time, down to the second. Because we had to set them manually, different people's watches were sometimes in disagreement, but generally pretty close to each other. Some watches were slower or faster, so we sometimes had to correct the time. My first watch had a traditional clock face, except that it had Mickey Mouse in the middle using his arms to tell me the time. As I got older, I graduated from a traditional clock face to a digital watch. Both kinds had the date (or some portion of it), and I liked to look at my digital watch at midnight every New Year to watch the year change.
These days, smartwatches can do a lot more than just tell time, and they are generally connected to satellites so we don't have to set them manually. As I have gotten older, my skin has gotten more sensitive, so I can't wear a watch any more. So for all the dreaming of Dick Tracy's watch being real, I don't have one now because I can't wear it if I don't want a rash. But I have other ways of telling time. (Fun activity: Try saying "I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch" or "Which wristwatch is a Swiss wristwatch?" ten times quickly!)
Pocket Watch
By the time I came around, most people didn't use pocket watches (such as the one in the picture above) any more, but they were pretty cool. Some people did have them in their pocket, which you could usually tell because of the chain dangling from their belt or button loop and extending into their pocket. They could take the watch out, open it, and check the time. I have an image in my head of someone wearing a monocle with a matching chain while doing so, though monocles were long since out of use by my time. Some people also wore them to look tough.
Alarm Clock
We had a couple options for alarm clocks when I was younger. We had a small clock that I could put next to my bed, and set it to ring when I wanted to wake up. Alternatively, my watch had an alarm on it that I often used.
Holy Doctor Who, Batman!
Were there other ways of telling time?
Did my grandfather own a clock, and did it fit on the shelf?
Am I going to blog more about this, or have I gone cuckoo?
Do I even use my cell phone to tell time, or should my phone be confined to a cell by Dick Tracy?
Am I going to TICK another post off the list, or will you need to TOCK to someone else?
Will the pendulum swing to a new post?
Can the clock in my car take me Back to the Future?
TUNE IN TOMORROW!
SAME BAT-TIME,
SAME BAT-CHANNEL!
