Dan's Papers - August 24, 2007 - The Sheltered Islander

I have a memory from when I was a very small child of my great grandfather, Clancy Seaman, standing in the kitchen in his LIRR conductor's uniform, with a vest that had a chain draped from a buttonhole to a small pocket on the vest. My great grandfather used a pocket watch, as was the custom for his generation. I always thought he looked so proud and dapper in his railroad uniform. I think I fell in love with pocket watches because of that memory.

Pocket watches are novelties now and except for the real antiques, no modern watchmakers make them and no one uses them. A pity. The wristwatch came into existence in the 1920s - courtesy of Tiffany's, who made them for the Army and called them "tank watches" - and we've had time on our hands ever since.

If you ever need to know if someone is right or left-handed and you don't want to ask him, look at his wrist. Right-handers wear their watches on their left wrist and vice-versa. And if someone forgot to wear their watch on any given day, you would know that by the fact that they look at a blank wrist and curse every five minutes all day long.

I noticed that many young people don't wear watches at all. I asked my daughter why not, and she said, "Cell phones, Mom. You can set your screen to always show the time. Wearing a watch is for old people, it's the sign of a TC, Technologically Challenged, that's you Mom."

"Yeah, but when you want to know the time, you have to find your phone in your purse first."

"No, that's what phone chains are for," she said as she showed me her cell phone on a tiny tether, strapped to her purse.

"What's the little seahorse for?" I asked, observing that they were also attached to the phone.

"Jewelry for your phone - should be a natural concept for you, oh Mother whose breathalyzer test would show a blood glitter level of 2%."

Using your phone as a timekeeper, jewelry for the phone, a leash for the phone, apparently an entire subculture centered on cell phones and their new role as timekeeping devices has been blossoming without my knowledge or consent.

"Maybe I should get one of these iPhones I saw on TV," I said.

"You don't even have a cell phone, Mom. You aren't ready or qualified to own an iPhone. You know they play music, right?"

"In your ear, while you're talking? That's terrible!"

"No, it combines a cell phone with an iPod, you know, the thing you call my 'pea pod'."

"Does it have a clock in it too?"

"Yes, Mom. Not only does it tell time, you can set an alarm and there's a mini program that sends a signal to your coffeepot to start brewing and turns your TV on to a preprogrammed station."

"Well, that's convenient."

"No, Mom. I'm joking."

"Oh, it doesn't tell time and play music?"

"Just forget it, Mom."

Not long after that conversation, my daughter started a job and all of a sudden, started wearing a wristwatch.

"What happened to wrist watches being old fashioned?" I asked.

"Mom, be practical. I can't look at my phone all day."

"So, does this mean I'm smart after all?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Mother."

"Admit it, I am smart sometimes!"

"Keep it up and I'll start talking about CD burners and wireless remotes and Bluetooth! Then we'll see how smart you are!"

"Oh yeah? I've got a hundred embarrassing pictures of you from your childhood! They're going up on my YouLube.com today! What's so funny?"