Call Time!

I remembered something the other day quite by accident.  My wife asked me what time it was from across the room.  Without even thinking about it, I said out loud "At the tone, the time will be 5:45 and 30 seconds... *beeeep*".

As soon as I was finished I blurted out, "Oh, my gosh - do you remember that?  Do you remember how we used to "call time"?  A wave of memories came over us as we recalled that this was something we all used to do.  You'd pick up the phone and "call time" to get the correct time, and a recorded woman's voice would recite the current time down to - It think - the 15 second mark.

As I thought it over, I figured out why it was so common that we did this back then.  We all had watches.  Most had to be wound, and those with batteries would start to slow down.  Wall clocks had batteries, most appliances didn't have batteries.  The big thing was that we didn't have computers or our phones that keep totally accurate time - ALL the time.  We also didn't have electronic readouts on every single appliance and electrical thing we owned.

The bottom line was that in order to make sure that our watches and clocks were accurate, we had to "call time" to check them.
Now days all of our electronic devices are totally accurate and even change to the correct time zones as you travel.

I found a great little article by a guy about it here:

http://littlenuances.blogspot.com/2010/09/remember-when-we-used-to-call-time.html

And apparently, the service just completely and officially ended in a few years back...

http://www.switched.com/2007/08/29/at-the-tone-the-time-will-be-up/

Wish I'd thought about about this before, I would have like to call and listen to the "time lady" one more time...

Wind-up Watches

Did you know that you can still buy a wind-up watch?  I remember when you couldn’t buy anything BUT a wind-up watch.  It’s hard to effectively convey the amount of responsibility that you felt when you got your first watch. 

First off, most of the watches had glass faces.  Not only did this make them susceptible to getting scratched, it could also crack and /or shatter if you weren’t careful.  And being a kid, you had to really be mindful of your arm now that it had a watch on it!

 

Next – you had to wind it!  If you didn’t do this, it stopped running – and it did so by slowing down – so you would unknowingly be late because you forgot to wind your watch. It was VERY important to remember to wind it at least once a day!

Also – they weren’t cheap.  If you got a watch as a gift, it was a gift of substance.

It was Similar to this...

I remember that one of my first watches was a beautiful silver trimmed Timex with a deep burgundy face that made the black hands really pop.  It had a genuine dark leather wristband to boot!  I felt like a million bucks when I wore it and it helped me feel more confident, too.

el-cheap-o!

I had some great watches growing up, but eventually the world advanced and cheap Casio watches with batteries that were small and lasted forever came in mass supply.  And they were digital with LED crystal displays…and black plastic wristbands.  Winding watches was a thing of the past, akin to if you are reading this on an IBM 286 with a 7" amber monitor.

And, I know I said that you can still buy them, but I would guess you have to look for them… does anyone have one?

Did you have a cool wind-up watch growing up?

– or – have you never even heard of such a thing?

– or – the big question – Do you even wear a watch?  They definitely seem to be vanishing from the wrists of our youth now that phones have evolved…