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A Watch Journey Musing
Posted By: Phather Phil
Date: 10/31/06 12:50 GMT
The drone of the engines had just about lulled me to sleep. It was a late evening flight in 1992 from Orlando to Tulsa. There is something a bit mesmerizing about looking out a plane's window in the dark. The steady blink of the light on the wing bounces off the night sky with a hypnotic effect.
My client, the COO of one of Florida's largest hospitals sat in the aisle seat. Fortunately no one was between us. My task was to serve as his host as we toured an integrated services program at Tulsa Medical Center. He was an impressive fellow. He was competent, classy and careful in all he did. I respected and liked him. Ironically, I spent a lot of time in airplanes flying between doctor's offices and hospitals during the middle 1990's myself.
At the time I was working for an Ophthalimic equipment firm out of the midwest as the primary tech support persona and installation specialist for the firm's digital imaging product basically a first generation Kodak DCS Nikon Camera back and associated equipment that would allow doctors to take digital images of the retina in a quick and timely fashion.
So I spent a lot of time in the air from Southern California to Munich Germany, from Brooksville Florida (Spent the week before Christmas 1995 down there) to Saginaw Michigan installing and maintaining these systems.
Looking over at him out of my drowsiness, I noticed he was busy. His reading light was aglow. His tray was down. He was doing something to a watch.
I never had paid much attention to watches. I inherited my grandfather's pocket watch. One of my old bosses wore a Rolex. He let everyone know it was a Rolex. I didn't like him or his watch. I think my dad must have liked watches. He always wore a big Omega. After he died my sister found a beat-up boy-sized Rolex in his bureau drawer. I couldn't imagine him wearing it. It was so small. I couldn't picture my dad flashing his Rolex-encrusted wrist. Maybe in 1945 Rolexes didn't flash.
I leaned over and looked closer. My client was changing the strap on his watch. He was intent in his work. Noticing that I was watching, he told me that he liked to rotate the straps on his watches to give them different looks. Watches? My immediate thought was why would anyone need more than one watch? He handed the watch over to me. I had never seen anything like it.
You see, my watch that night was one of the billion or so made that year that was completely adequate. If functioned as it should. It told time as one tells a boring story. As I write this, I cannot tell you what brand it was. It was an anonymous adequate watch. It served a purpose and served it well.
I had never seen a watch like my client's. It had little sub dials, little buttons on the side and little hands that were all on a journey. They smoothly and purposely rotated their way to their appointed time. I was fascinated. It had a vintage look that reminded me of something secure and steady. It was big; not quite bold. Its stainless steel case was solid without the flash. I instantly liked it. It had a little shield on the dial with the word "Heuer" plainly but prominently painted on it.
My client told me that he collected Heuer watches. I collected old Wheaties boxes and Winnie the Pooh stuff. I never knew anyone who collected watches. Somewhere over Arkansas a new world was opened to me. It was a world that would take me on many wonderful journeys on which I would meet many wonderful people. He told me the history of the Heuer Watch Company. He talked about chronometers and chronographs.
Next thing I knew we were landing in Tulsa. I gave him his watch back. "Go ahead and wear it while we are here." Outside of a marriage ceremony words were never uttered that so profoundly changed a life. I wore the watch all day. He simply reached into his briefcase and pulled out another. I looked at the watch constantly. Sometimes I even used it to tell the time. I was hooked. In fact, at the time, my two primary watches were my Heuer Pilot's quartz and my Omega Speedmaster Mark II Pro. As the Mark II was a bit on the beat up side, the Pilot's model usually got the nod, at least until the crown (from all those time changes ) popped off on a 737 heading out of Baltimore. I had the crown replaced and on the next trip (to Munich) I found a Citizen Navihawk (with it's Slide Rule and ability to display three time zones simultaniously and three alarms) that I bought for my "trans-time zone" travel watch. I still wore my Heuer Pilot's model when traveling within my home Time Zone, but when I went further afield I left the Heuer at home to preserve it as it was and still is one of my favorites.
Since 1992 I have focused on map dial watches, pocket watches, Eternas, RGMs, Enicars, Portas, vintage watches and yes, even the occasional Rolex. The trip from Orlando to Tulsa took me many more places on many more planes. There have been trips to Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Dallas, Lancaster and San Francisco . . . each in search of that one (or two or three) wonderful watch. There have been hundreds if not thousands of daily journeys to watch forums. I have written over fifty horological homilies. All of it began in a star-filled journey to Tulsa.
Oh yes, you may have guessed it by now. Once back home in Sarasota I began looking for a watch . . . of course it had to be a Heuer! Here is a picture of the first watch I ever intentionally bought (photo is by Chuck Maddox). It was a wonderful big automatic Heuer pilot watch. That watch is long gone. It got moisture inside and died a slow rusty death. I have often looked for another. Sometimes it is good to go back to your roots.
It is indeed... The Pilot's model makes for a very good travel watch. One can calculate sales tax, currency conversions, even time-distance-rate equasions easily with it's Whiz-Wheel bezel. The stopwatch function is useful and it has a date which is always handy when you're on the road and away from calendars on your wall, etc.
A month or so ago a good guy on a good forum indicated that he had a watch for sale. It immediately got my attention. It was, of course, a vintage Heuer chronograph . . . a timepiece with all those tiny hands that had so tickled me that time in Tulsa. Of course I couldn't resist. It will be here in a few days. The journey that began in 1992 in Tulsa has now come roundtrip (photo by Mark Holzmann). Ah, a Siffert model, very nice! That one has a great look!
Incidentally, your COO coleague probably didn't have a Pilot's model that night as the early pattern Pilot's had a no-conventional-lug integrated bracelet, and the model's which did have lugs which you could swap out for a strap came after 1994 or 1995 if memory serves me correctly. When I was on the road back then, at night I'd visit the local shopping malls and on one trip to the Princeton New Jersey area (same week as the Oklahoma City bombing) I priced a Black Dial TAG-Heuer Pilot's automatic at a Mall in Jersey (I think they were looking for about $1,000... I probably should have bought it).
Anyway, great story and a great pictup. Thanks for sharing!
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