family

My circle of watch ownership ends here.

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When I was around nine or ten it seems like we went to Santa Monica beach a lot. My dad loved to swim and body surf, so I did, too. Pretty soon I decided I needed a dive watch so I saved up my allowances and bought real a dive watch, or so I thought. Bear in mind this was about 1970. The first time I wore the watch in the waves of the blue Pacific the case was half-filled with water by the time we got out. 

Sigh.

I was in high school by the time I bought another watch, a Timex Ironman. I loved that watch and got me through college and beyond. Then there was another long dry spell.

It was in 1997 that I got interested in Swiss and German watches. At the time, retail on an Omega Seamaster Professional was $1750. I really wanted a white dial with the polished bezel so I found a watch pusher in Beverly Hills from whom I bought most of the watches I would buy new for the next decade or so. The deal was less 30. I loved those days.

Later, I started buying used Speedy Professionals. At the time, on the used market, they cost around $1000. The lowest price I ever got for one was $750. I also had an Omega X-33 (first gen) that I bought used with box and papers for $675. All it made me do was to want a second generation watch since I far preferred how it looked. The X-33 was and is a fantastic watch. If you get the chance, I highly recommend it, to paraphrase Ferris Bueller.

The weird thing is Omega cases of that era did not sit well on my wrist. I eventually I tried a Breitling SOP at my watch pusher’s store (Westime) and was surprised by how perfectly it sat on my wrist. I also enjoyed the slightly greater case thickness that made the watch sit up just a tad higher.

That black SOP was my go-to for the next decade. I paid $900 in a face to face in West Los Angeles. The only downside was that the bracelet didn’t have enough links to fit me without it being way too snug. So, I put a WTB ad up at TimeZone, not realizing how unlikely it was that I’d ever find a link donor. Then, and this was right before Christmas, a guy in Zürich popped up and offered to sell me two links. Right when I was ready to send him payment, he told me not to bother. He would send them to me free, even paying for postage. See? There are some really nice people in this hobby.

Other brands that have crossed my path have been Universal Geneve (back when I occasionally wore dress shirts), Fortis and Stowa during my pilot period and a lovely Longines two-register pilot watch that I unwisely sold to my brother. At least I can visit it when the spirit moves me. 

Suddenly, a few years back, pretty much all of my watches were gone, sold and traded away. All that remained were a couple micros, an Armida (recently sold) and a Deep Blue (still, in a drawer, I think). The last man standing is a dandy Seiko 7002 that’s for sale right here, right now. It is a great watch but is another case style that simply does not suit my wrist. I will hate to see it go even though I never wear it. Even though t’s for sale but I don’t really care if anyone buys it. I’d be Ok with it living on my bedside table so I can occasionally have a look at it for the rest of my days. Odd thing, I believe the 7002 is the only Seiko I have ever owned. Weird.

Yes, that brings me to the Casio G-Shock GW-M5610U-1b. Yes, it’s my first G-Shock. Who knows if it will be my last but I think it marks what I can only think of as a circular evolution when it comes to watches. When I was a kid, I was all about functionality. Later, when I had a few bucks I appreciated the quality and style of the Swiss houses. But, and I know this doesn’t apply to everyone, the hobby became less fun as the prices floated ever higher. 

And, of course, the cost effect goes well beyond watches. I was playing tennis the other day. My hitting partner had just been to SoFi Stadium. I asked him how it was, knowing it was likely a huge step up from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Bowl. He said it was fantastic but for the staggeringly high price of — everything. I asked him how much it cost to park. He said $100, for the cheap parking!

Today, the price of Swiss watches reminds me of $100 parking. Playing in the micro brand pool alleviated the sticker shock but the sense of sameness of the micro designs saps my interest. But I missed wearing a watch. When people would ask about me always wearing a watch, considering my phone gave the correct time I always had the same comeback. 

Well, my phone is in my pocket and my watch is on my wrist.

My G-Shock may well be the end of the circle for me. I can pretty much guarantee I will never buy another Swiss watch, certainly not a new one. And, sure, I might miss the pleasures of that experience but then again maybe I won’t. When I was in the process of deciding which G-Shock to buy I thought about insisting on sapphire. Then, I rethought things and decided to go as modest as I could while still getting the entirety of my functional demands (display size, case size, case thickness, solar and auto time set) and that drew me to the humble 5610. 

My G-Shock reminds me, a little, of the Timex Ironman that served me so well when I was in college. Owning watches has been a fun ride and one I still enjoy, even if the ride is so different than it used to be. Either that, or it’s almost exactly the same.

My circle of watch ownership ends here.

My Mom and NASA STS-51I

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I can only recall one time my father wasn’t willing to take my mom somewhere. It was 1985 and my mothers wanted to watch Space Shuttle Discovery land at Edwards AFB. Discovery’s flight lasted 7 days, 2 hours, 17 minutes, 42 seconds and it landed on September3, 1985 at 6:15:43 a.m.

But that’s the end of the story and that’s almost never what I’m all about. Now I, like my father, wasn’t crazy about getting up at Oh Dark Thirty but I could see my mom really wanted to go. It wasn’t surprising. My mom liked to watch construction work being done. She liked watching the Lockheed SR-71 under full afterburner at the airshow at Point Mugu.

A Lockheed SR-71 under full afterburner.

In fact, my mother told the story of the sights and sounds of the Blackbird many times after the show. She just loved stuff like that.

A retired Lockheed SR-71A (Blackbird, s/n 64-17972, A19920072000) photographed on a road in front of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum temporary Blackbird storage hangar at Dulles International Airport, Chantilly, Virginia.

On that early autumn morning, I picked my mom up in my 1981 Nissan Diesel pickup truck and we made our way to the high desert a little before 4 a.m. Topanga was quiet but not empty and a early-season Santa Ana was working its way south. 

Nothing, and I mean nothing, sounds and feels like a diesel cruising on a freeway in the dark. There’s a quality to the pitch and rhythm of the engine (in this case the Nissan SD-22, originally designed for use in forklifts) that makes it feel steady and inevitable and loyal as it powers the truck forward into time and space. Somehow, someway, a cruising diesel constantly reminds you that you’re truly going somewhere.

You can feel it in your bones.

We picked up the 405 and left the 118 behind and all was still dark. Sunrise was at 6:27 a.m. and Discovery was supposed to land fifteen minutes before then. Traffic on the 14 was a little heavier going south than north. It felt like we were the only ones heading toward the dry lake even though I knew we weren’t. We rolled on, mostly in silence, my mom commenting from time to time about the way the mountains had been cut to allow the highway to go through.

I don’t remember where we got off the 14. There was no GPS and I don’t even think we brought a map. We only had our reckoning and that turned out to be enough. Looking at a map, I will guess we got off somewhere around Rosamond before we headed east. Finally, we saw a small collection of cars and campers sitting on the side of the road, south of what we could later see was the dry-lake runway itself. I picked a place to park and we got out of the truck and stretched our legs. Then, we waited along with a few hundred others who huddled in small groups in the pre-dawn chill.

A few guys further up the road scanned the sky with binoculars, while trying to guess the direction of Discovery’s approach. Finally, in the very quietest moment, a boom rolled over the desert. Seconds later, a cheer rose from the faithful and everyone looked skyward to catch a glimpse of the shuttle on its approach.

Finally, we could see it. It didn’t look much like an airplane. As it traveled across the indigo sky, it also descended, very fast. It looked very much like a stone falling and it was hard to imagine something falling so fast could ever slow enough to make its way safely down the runway. 

Finally, Discovery made a huge, soft turn and began to approach the dry lake from the east. Now the shape of Discovery could be clearly seen as it lined up perfectly above the center of the runway. Discovery was no more than a few hundred feet away as it passed us, close enough for us to see its red and white parachute billow from the rear of the fuselage. The crowd whooped as it went by and once it was stationary, far in the distance, people began to look at one another, making sure everyone had witnessed what they had experienced. That’s an interesting kind of sharing, seeing something so noteworthy and, for my mom and me, unique in all of our lives. A couple years later, I would again stand at Edwards and look to the sky as Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in an McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II on the 40th anniversary of his 1947 flight in the Bell X-1.

But on that day in 1985 I thought only of my mother and how lucky we were to share such an amazing experience. My mom turned to me and grabbed my arm. “Paulie, I’m so glad we saw this!”

My Mom and NASA STS-51I

Throwing away an idea

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One of the reasons I insure my now-aged 2006 Mini Cooper with Hagerty is the ongoing enjoyment I get from reading their superb Drivers Club quarterly magazine. First of all, the issues are printed. This fact makes me think think back on the USGA’s defunct magazine, Golf Journal, surely one of the best golf periodicals ever and also a stinging example of the USGA’s lack of vision and why golf sucks. I have collected a handful of year’s worth of Drivers Club issues. I keep them in wooden magazine holders I’ve owned for decades. When the dedicated holders got full about a year ago I decided to purge the least-interesting past issue whenever a new issue arrived in my PO Box.

Wednesday is happy hour day (I say day because my friends at Institution don’t do HH every day but only on Wesnesdays and only from 4-6pm. Geez.) at Institution Ale and I made sure to bring my reading glasses so I could devour the issue in a hop and sunshine-augmented vibe. The issue was a little disappointing but I still read most of it. By the time I finished my one-and-done ON PINS & NEEDLES (Session IPA) I had closed the magazine, done with it and sure it was the latest issue not to make it into the vanishing space of my wood magazine holders. By the way, I don’t usually care for session IPAs but this one was excellent, while not at all like being hit over the head as are so many of the big-boned, broad-shouldered IPAs I typically enjoy. After leaving my empty glass on the bar I noticed a trash can and unceremoniously dumped the current issue of Drivers Club.

Then, I forgot all about it.

Until this morning.

While on my 30-minute drive to tennis I made a couple voice memos, two of them actually. After I finished the second recording my mind flashed to the day before and the trashed magazine. And then I remembered the largely subliminal urge that caused me to throw the magazine away.

There was an article in the magazine about a guy who set out in his crappy old Mitsubishi pickup / camper to visit some of the environs of California’s own, John Steinbeck. Something about the guy’s set up irked me. I may not have appreciated the Steinbeck works he focused on, especially Travels with Charley, but there was something else that kept me from reading an essay that might have been right up my reading alley. I know Steinbeck’s work well, having read all of his works (even his superb short stories) with the exception of East of Eden. I could easily do what this guy did (absent the mini-truck camper). What afflicted me was simple road trip envy.

Yes, we recently returned from my family reunion in the midwest.

Yes, we extended our trip with a three-day visit with my dear friend MIB in south-eastern Michigan.

And, yes, we hope to make it to Sacramento sometime this fall.

And, that was enough when it comes to travel for a while.

But, a true road trip is different. I haven’t been on one of those for years. To me, road trips differ significantly from simply traveling by car. One of the main differences is a lack of advanced hotel/motel reservations. This is especially doable when on one’s home turf, which I am whenever I am in California. Unless I’m way north of Redding, I’m more than happy to head for home if I can’t find anywhere to stay. A big challenge for me is finding places in California I’ve not been before or places I’ve forgotten about or would actually like to visit. A friend of mine just got home from riding the historic Skunk Train in Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg is a weak maybe while the Skunk Train is a big probably not.

Even though I’m not excited by the prospect of riding a near-silent rail car I would like to spend some time in California in the 300+ miles from Fort Bragg to Medford, Oregon. Here I am thinking of the Trinity National Forest and the Six Rivers National Forest.

But now the calendar says September and that makes me wonder when we will have the chance to take another road trip.

I hope it’s soon.

In the meantime, I wonder if I can find a copy of the current issue of Hagerty Drivers Club on Ebay?

Throwing away an idea