There was a time before batteries which have the distressing quality of losing power just when you need your time piece desperately, that you wound your watch and the spring would not last as long as you hoped or expected.  In many houses there were Grandfather and Grandmother standing clocks with pendulums and a great ticking sound with chimes at fifteen, half hour or hour marks. These depended on keys and winding springs.  I always missed the keying and winding and just thought you had to nudge the pendulum to get it started and it would go on forever. For those of old enough to remember and actually still use a watch that has to be wound, either the spring is superlative; your need for routine extreme. The time eventually came when batteries were the power source that ruled time.

I once was given a quartz powered wrist watch that was powered by a battery unusual for its time.  It was not quite guaranteed to last forever but the advertisements suggested this.  This watch was stolen.  I had another watch that was sun powered.  All it needed was exposure to the sun for a few hours a day and it did seem to work forever.  Unfortunately, time became a familiar and necessary thing where factories in China and elsewhere turned them out so cheaply that, wristband and all it would cost just over a dollar and everyone had one and we began to give them as toys to little children who had no sense of time at all.

It is curious that very large wall clocks with big enough numbers to be seen anywhere in a large assembly hall are powered by a single AA battery and lasts at least for a year. But, these and other watches in our pockets, purses, drawers or in boxes of junk we do not want to throw away have all been discarded because of fashion or something better has come along. We want to keep them because they were part of us for a long time (and call us sentimental), we need to keep them while they languish unseen, unused and probably dry (if spring operated) and corroded if the battery leaked. I have my father’s pocket watch and wonder who will get it.

We humans who have extended our lives to the upper limits of 80’s and 90’s have some exemplary specimens living to one hundred and twenty four – the last “oldest” human who just passed away.  Lady Lil, my mother-in-law lived to one hundred years, eight months and five days which was a pretty good score for she kept alive, interested and was loved and loved all who knew her.  I’m not sure if we need the injunction, “May you live to 120” recorded in the Torah.

But I want to leave with the comment that we run down as our springs lose their strength and the batteries their juice.  It is a time that comes to each of us and we are then put in urns or boxes for we once were cherished and loved and well used.