I purchased a digital stopwatch the other day for our upcoming horse shows this summer. It works fine, but one aggravating thing about it for me is that it never turns off but becomes a regular clock when not in "Stop watch mode". These days it seems like every gadget has a clock in it. For example, I have a digital clock in the following: Computer, cell phone, electric range, cordless phone, VCR, DVD player, satellite TV screen, small Sony radio (for walking the fields and listening to Rush Limbaugh), voice mail machine, caller ID unit, microwave, wireless thermometer, the radio in my Jeep... These are just the things that I can think of on the spur of the moment, not to mention the clocks on the kitchen and living room walls! Good grief! These days I'm on "time overload! This is ironic in that since I've retired, I have no need to know what time it is. I get up at dawn to feed the horses, and when doing farm work, I stop when it's finished, I eat when I'm hungry, and go to bed when I get sleepy. When I was working at the County, I only needed to know what time it was on only two occasions: lunchtime and quitting time. During my whole work time at the County, when I did need to know the time, my County truck had a clock in the radio and I had one in my office (a nice big one). Oh hey, I just checked the clock on my computer screen while writing this and it's exactly 11:37:31 PM. Now why would anyone ever need to know the time to the hundredth of a second? Well, on second thought, that would have been really handy when I was working at the County for lunchtime and quitting time.

 

Speaking of the exact time to a hundreth of a second; I got a wireless thermometer a while back, with a clock of course, and the clock is automatically set each day with a radio signal based on atomic time! It's supposed to be accurate within something like .2618 one thousanth of a second for the next 10,000 years, give or take a few milliseconds. Now THAT I could have used at the County! It's really useless for me to have a clock that accurate since I rarely look at them anyway. However; I can see that an atomic clock would come in handy in the event of a nuclear attack by the Commies. At least the clock would still be accurate even after the whole world is destroyed. I have to admit that's one good reason to have an atomic clock.

 

The only time I ever had a wristwatch when I was a kid was the one my grandmother "Ollie" gave me one year for Christmas. It was a Davey Crocket watch and I had it apart and in pieces before I ever even had it on my wrist! As a kid I was very mechanically inquisitive and had to see how everything worked on the inside. Unfortunately, my inquisitiveness never included how things went together on the outside. Besides, I didn't need a wristwatch anyway. I only cared about what time it was on two occasions: School lunchtime and when school was over for the day. Say, now that I think about it, I wished those school clocks would have told time to the hundredth of a second then too. The clocks that were in each classroom wall were different from any others I have ever seen. Instead of the minute hand constantly moving like a normal clock, every second that passed by the minute hand would jerk forward. I remember hearing the "click" as the hand moved. Ah, every click meant lunchtime or the end of school was getting nearer and nearer. Then there were those infernal bells in school. School started with a bell, ended with a bell, lunchtime started with a bell, ended with a bell, recess started and ended with a bell. The most dreaded thing we kids feared was not getting back to the classroom in time before the tardy bell rang! It seemed like only a few hundredths of a second between the first bell and the tardy bell. Maybe the master clock in the principal's office recorded the time in hundredths of a second too! The question we guys were always pursuing was, "Was that the first or second bell?" Or, "Hey! The bell rang!!!" When we were in grade school, the bell always rang when we were at the opposite end of the athletic field. We ran back to the school building so fast that Jessie Owens would have been lost in our dust trail.

 

As I heretofore mentioned, even as a kid, I never wore a watch, in fact, I don't know any kid that did. We never needed to know the time because all the bells would let us know when to do everything. The one possible exception was the guys who were really smart and wore glasses and buttoned the top button of their shirts, and always had a camera around their necks. They seemed to always have a wristwatch. In later life in the Navy I never had the need to wear a wristwatch either. When aboard ship, there were always announcements on the ship's loudspeakers (called the 1MC).  Everything we needed to do was announced when we had to do it. To get up in the morning there was an announcement which was at least 591,951.48 decibels that blared, "REVILLE REVELLE! ALL HANDS HEAVE OUT AND THRICE UP!!!"  If you are deaf, the Navy won't take you, but if you become deaf while in the Navy, that's all right. Everything else was also announced preceded by: "NOW HEAR THIS!..."  I could never figure out why every announcement was preceded with "NOW HEAR THIS!" At the decibel level every announcement was made, you would have had to have been dead at least three days not to be able to hear it! The most important announcement on any ship (other than liberty call) was General Quarters. It was always announced: "GENERAL QUARTERS!!! GENERAL QUARTERS!! ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS!!!!! This announcement was always accompanied by a LOUD noise. You have all heard how it sounds from watching war movies: "BOING BOING BOING..." These General Quarters announcements inevitably came in the middle of the night or just when we sat down to eat. It's curious that this was about the only announcement that wasn't preceded in most instances with: "NOW HEAR THIS!!!" You would think that "NOW HEAR THIS" would be much more important for General Quarters, when the ship is in danger of sinking and all of us being killed due to some enemy (read Commie) action than "NOW HEAR THIS! ALL HANDS ON DECK TO SEE THE CAPTAIN'S  NEW SHOES"!!! ... or whatever...

 

Oh Oh, I have to quickly end this story now because Ava is calling me from the other room: "Hey, it's time to let the cats out!"  I sure hope she doesn't happen to read this story because the next time she calls me to do something it will be preceded with "NOW HEAR THIS...!

 

For years, people have asked me why I never wear a wristwatch. Why should I?  I've never needed to!!!