Marking Time

A jeweler friend of mine told me a couple of years ago when repairing my wristwatch that watches are being replaced by cell phones, which was affecting the watch repair part of his business.  Who needs to wear their timepiece on their wrists when they can just as easily look at their phones?  Wearing a watch may be a generational kind of thing anymore.  It's true -- I don't see as many people wearing them as I used to.  Yet, we live with even more time constraints in our lives than ever before.  I saw a panel of speakers recently -- each of whom looked as if they came into adulthood in the 1970s, like me -- and they were all, except one, wearing a wristwatch.  I take my wristwatch off when I come home and enjoy not being tied to the time throughout the evenings and weekends, but if I am heading somewhere, especially to work, I feel lost without my watch.  Back in the days before cell phones, I recall having the battery die on my watch at a most inopportune time.  A kind soul loaned me her watch and even had the battery replaced in mine so I could carry on with my work, which required paying attention to increments of time.  How times (pardon the pun!) have changed!