Seiko

This piece goes back to ~’91, when I was in my late forties and courting a lady from Norway who I’d met that February during a series of lectures she’d given on our Midwestern campus. After months of letter writing I picked her up in Boston for our first week together. (In those days I played in a summer music festival in New Hampshire, and she, by amazing coincidence, had been slated to attend a family wedding in NH just a week after said festival was to begin.)

Driving south on route 93, my head spinning in anticipation, I impulsively decided that to make myself aaap (as attractive as possible) for this seminal moment I needed a new watch. But in those days I was not a member of the fraternity, and being from out of town, and with limited time to act on my impulse, I simply pulled into the parking lot of a K-Mart I happened to be passing, hoping to find something appropriate.

Standing before the watch case I decided three things. First: this was a new day, and I was no longer going to sweat the small stuff—ergo, a two-hander was all I should require. And second: as I was already “married” to the idea that this lady was the one for me, I’d buy something so light I might actually be able to keep it on while playing (therefore, be able to wear all the time—my avatar reveals that I am a violinist). And not only light, but dressy enough that I could wear it in concert. Then third: that I would actually spend some dough (this was a Seiko, after all)—no going cheap for this gal. The watch was priced at $99.00! 

Well, it’s now 2019; said lady is asleep upstairs; and this watch resides on a defunct watch winder, keeping essentially perfect time as it has all these years. Oh, somewhere around year six or seven I cracked the crystal, and it was another two years or so before I had a local jeweler send it to Chicago to be completely rebuilt. And, of course, I haven’t worn it daily in a long time. But I always replace the battery, and it’s always there to remind me of that glorious afternoon when I swept her off of the steps of the Copley Plaza hotel and we sped northward in my silver Golf.

Great watch. Better lady.

FH