Jewelry - Why do I need it

I grew up here in the Big Town of Savage surrounded by items of jewelry.  Most of the family members in my grandmom's house were women and my father was big on wearing shiny stuff to clip his tie, tell the time and show he was married.  I'm thinking back after WW II in the late '40s and early '50s.

After the war it seemed that everyone wanted to show off a bit and have flashy cars, of which there were many in the chrome laden '50s.  I think my first and only item of jewelry was a watch.  Back in the '50s there wasn't a device displaying the time everywhere you looked; most folks wore wrist watches or some older men a pocket watch and most women had wrist watches.

Just like the chrome laden autos, a watch had to be kind of flashy in addition to providing functionality by displaying the correct time.  Watches were mechanical devices that you had to 'wind up' every day or so or it would stop.  Some watches didn't keep very good time and needed to be set to the correct time  when they were off.

I don't recall the specifics of my watches when I was a kid, but I did make sure it was wound up regularly and set to the right time.  Mine wasn't too flashy and I got one of those stretch bands so it would go over my hand and cling to my wrist without me having to pin the leather strap.  When I married I gained a wedding ring to go along with my watch and at work I'd use a tie clasp to hold the necktie in place.

Pretty soon electric clocks were everywhere, even on your wrist and they kept remarkably accurate time.  I went thru life with my watch and wedding ring until one day in the early '90s I looked around my office at work and everywhere I looked there was a time device, either on the wall or on my computer or ... ...

I decided I no longer needed my silvery electronic watch on my arm.  So, I attached one of those magnetic thingies with a hook on it to the bottom of the shelf over my desk and hung my watch on the hook.  And that was the last time I wore a watch.  And when my marriage ended I no longer needed the ring on my finger.

So, I no longer wore any type jewelry.  That was over 20 years ago and it's kinda neat that I don't worry about any of that today.  Had I not run across my old watch in my dresser drawer a few days ago, I likely wouldn't have written this blog post either.

JD, sans jewelry here in the BToS

PS - I never really warmed up to digital time pieces and still have analog clocks in the house; but of course they are called Atomic Clocks and grab the correct time out of the air and are never wrong.  Just what we all need, an analog clock adjacent to our computer.