time for Tim

One recent Saturday, Tim and I stopped in at Hollywood Antiques, the clever-usage new shop in town that took over after the demise of the Hollywood Video where our daughter used to work. We were on the clock that day, but we zipped through the place, enjoying and planning to return on a slower afternoon.

Right away Tim spotted this nifty travel alarm. It's a Bulova, shaped like a stack of Liberty dollars, and the face cover rotates over to open or close. I bought it a few days later, stopping in at the shop late after work, hoping my hubby wouldn't have already snatched it up. But he didn't, and for once, anyway, I surprised him this birthday morning with something he likes.

Interesting how growing older makes one in-the-know regarding antiques. I remember toting travel alarm clocks on camping trips and to motels. The need to wind them, the way we wound our watches, a ubiquitous part of life if we wanted to arrive places punctually.

The hands on my first watch, a Timex, had the same glow-in-the-dark stuff. At 2:00 a.m. I squinted at it and felt relieved to have three or four more hours left before I'd need to get ready for school. Lying in the stillness of night I could let my mind roam free.

I may have had a wind-up clock before receiving my rectangular, electric timepiece somewhere around third grade. On trips, though, we always snoozed to the tick-tick-tick of our travel clock. And of course we could nestle one of them close to a new kitten or puppy so they wouldn't miss their mother's heartbeat.

Nowadays, the luminated, digital watch James Bond first made famous has given way to the cell phone. Which is kind of funny. Our grandfathers carried pocket watches, and we do, as well, though they're part of a whole different paradigm. Trying not to be late has evolved (or devolved) into carrying along all of life's necessities and every Facebook friend. It's cool and weird.

Also weird is that when I didn't use flash, capturing Tim's clock made it look silver, while using my camera's automatic flashbulb shows his birthday present in its true golden state. Remember flash cubes? And snapping photos with an Instamatic, then waiting for the film roll to be used up, the developing time the drug store took, the lack of ability to share a present's image with anyone till long past the celebratory date?