Chapter One

Chapter One

This Ravenswood neighborhood was beautiful.  Old brick buildings, with tall oaks lining the streets. I hadn't been sure what to expect, but it was lovely.  It was a perfect Summer day in Chicago, 72 degrees, and not a cloud in the sky.  I was driving my rusty, crappy old convertible, happy for the rare opportunity to enjoy the weather and have some time behind the wheel.

I was here to meet a fellow car & watch nerd, and he'd given me directions to his office parking garage, where I'd be able to park my old Fiat next to his old Land Rover, where we would debate the pains & foibles of trying to maintain two wildly different kinds of notoriously unreliable cars.  After comparing engine bay views and animated discussions of Marelli VS Lucas wiring, we went upstairs to his office & workspace.  As an independent watchmaker who I'd become friends with, I'd brought a number of watches to show and talk about on his podcast, which frankly, I wasn't too sure about.  I don't own any high-end "legit" watches, but I had a few that I'd been gifted or inherited over the years.  They might not be worth anything to anyone else, but nevertheless, they were priceless to me. 

His office was a typical Chicago loft – high ceilings with large wood beams, brick walls, a soft old Persian rug covered the wide-plank floor.  Slightly battered Eams lounge chairs flanked a bar cart with an old silver-faced stereo, and a loft area above the large, open steel-framed casement windows held his watchmaking space. A slight breeze and birdsong permeated the light, airy space, and it immediately felt like home.

After setting up the camera & microphones, he poured us a couple of drinks and I un-rolled the leather sheath.  Each watch had a story, and it seemed like most of my major life events were tied to one or another.  I'd arranged them chronologically, and he pointed at the first one, asking "what the heck is THAT thing?" It was a large, very worn watch, sitting next to a diminutive Heuer chronograph that bore the Abercrombie logo on it's face.  We both chuckled, and I took a sip of my drink before telling him about my grandfather Clarence and his two watches.  The Bourbon warmed my throat, and briefly I considered it a good omen.

My grandfather Clarence had grown up on a Tennessee dirt farm during the depression, believing his only way out was through education.  His mother had been a school teacher before the burdens of multiple children had brought her home full-time.  The other children, while diligent about chores around the farm, none of them showed the spark that young Clarence did, and she fanned that flame.  Too far to walk, the county library would send books via the local postal service, and each week Clarence traded old for new, as the postman cursed his heavy load.  Once he was in High School, Clarence earned straight A's, and the guidance counselor wrote him a glowing letter of recommendation, with little doubt in his mind it'd go nowhere, just like every other dirty white-trash  kid that had been through his school.

Timing and luck were on Clarence's side though.  President Roosevelt's depression-era Works Progress Administration had recently spawned the Tennessee Valley Authority with the newly minted awesome task of bringing electricity to every corner of the state.  To do this, they were granting scholarships to rural farm kids that showed promise, allowing Clarence to matriculate in far away Knoxville in 1937.  Clarence would graduate with his degree in civil engineering, just a few months before WWII started.  The US Army was desperate for engineers, and Clarence became a 2nt Lt.  Just before shipping out, his mother gave him the watch her father had carried through The Great War, in France.  Considered overly large and unfashionable for the time, it had laid unworn in a drawer for many years, but once Clarence wound & set it, he was pleased to find the old Elgin kept good time.  Originally the pocket-watch for a conductor on the Tennessee Central Line, an enterprising jeweler had welded loops on either side, allowing it to be worn on the wrist as many young Army officers had learned in the trenches of France.  Clarence considered it a lucky family talisman that had gotten his father home safely, and so he wore it all through Africa, and then Italy, as he and his section used their engineering skills to create bombing maps from grainy reconnaissance pictures for the 8^th Army Air Force, and indeed, the watch came safely home with him.

He'd always admired the sleek new chronographs worn by the bomber pilots, imagining that they made his trench watch look clunky and old-fashioned, no matter how well it kept time.  When he came home and began his career with the TVA, evaluating areas for potential hydro-electric projects, he put the watch in a drawer as his father had done, and got himself a handsome chronograph from the era's best outdoor outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch.  His new job saw him walking off into the woods for weeks at a time as he'd camp & live off the land while surveying valleys.  He needed quality boots and outdoor gear, and he'd seen the watch while shopping at the new downtown Abercrombie in Memphis.

Clarence gave me his father's trench watch when I got orders deploying me to the middle east.  A short decade later, I inherited his Heuer chronograph with a note that he'd been incredibly proud of me, saying I should keep these watches together for the next generation, so they could come home as safely as we'd done.

 

Prologue

I hate flying into DC. 

The chaos always starts at whatever airport you're departing from – and it doesn't matter WHERE that is, because the people going to DC are invariably the same.  Forget about the summer tourists, I'm talking about "The DC People".  The suit-wearing, matching designer luggage & briefcase,  and the overall 'uptight & conservative' look I can spot from 3 gates away.  The ubiquitous Burberry trench coat & speakerphone conversations always cause my shoulders to ratchet up a few degrees.  Between the monied political types & well paid private business types, the over-privileged attitue and commensurate seat assignments invariably means I get a damn middle seat.

However, this flight I get the rare treat of a port-side window seat.  A consistently bumpy flight has ensured the GAO accountant next to me has spilled at least one gin & tonic on me, but as the plane follows the Potomac on it's decent, I get the nice view straight down at the Pentagon, watching the Patriot missile battery track us as we make the big right turn to line-up on our final approach into Reagan National.

Waiting at the luggage carousel I can hear at least three separate speakerphone conversations as the lawyers & accountants confirm their car service pick-ups.  Immune to the use of headphones or (god forbid) airpods, they mimic favorite reality TV stars as they hold their phones in front of gaping mouths, speakerphones loud enough to get past my tinnitus with surprising clarity.

My father's battered old Land's End bag finally makes it's way around the carousel, it's old thread-bare monogram beginning to show signs of outright fraying.  Refusing to upgrade to a newer style of roller-bag, I'm convinced that being able to carry my bag like a grown-up is somehow superior to the matched-luggage of the consultants.

Predictably, the rental car counter is packed.  It's Spring in DC, and apparently it's pouring rain, making the marble floors slick & squeaky, and I'm reluctant to set my bag down in the puddles.  The little voice in my head mentions it'd not be a big deal if I had a new roller-bag, but that voice rarely has anything nice to say.

In the car, mildly soaked, I struggle to find to find light switches and HVAC controls, but finally I have the defrost on, the windows begin to clear, and somehow I even find WHFS on the radio.  Confident that I remember the way with 100% clarity, I plot a stop at my old favorite Walgreens for Excedrin. The DC Spring pollen has already lit my head on fire, and my CostCo sized Excedrin was forgotten in my rush to leave on short notice.  Cussing a blue-streak a few minutes later, I blame the dark and rain for missing my exit, but the profanity does little to reduce the cranial pounding.  I know I've been awake too long, and the late-day airline coffee is pulsing a staccato rhythm behind my sinuses.

At the Walgreen's in my old Shirlington neighborhood I sit in the car for a few minutes, waiting to see if the rain will let up, enjoying the end of The The's "This is the Day".  Once the DJ starts talking, I decide to make a run for it, slipping & nearly killing myself on the wet marble entrance floor.  A slow-moving, clearly disinterested employee is mopping the floor and he admonishes me to slow down.  Muttering to myself about less-slippery ice rinks I've been on, I look for the 'pain relief' signs, invariably in the back of the store behind the aisles of high-margin seasonal junk and candy.

Making my way to the check-out counter, a little kid runs right into my right thigh, and bounces down onto the floor, looking at me wide-eyed.  She's a cute little tow-head, and I try to smile behind my headache and hold my hand out to help her up.  Her little fingers grasp my index finger with surprising strength, and I hear her whispering something to herself.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"You're the man."

"What man?" I ask, confused.

"In Mommy's picture."

Realizing I have no idea, or any desire to continue this conversation, I turn towards the check-out counter, just as a harried looking woman rushes around the end of an aisle, clearly looking for this confused little girl.

Just as I begin to recognize the woman's coat & the familiar fall of blonde hair across her shoulder, the little girl points at me excitedly, saying, "Mommy, it's the man from your picture!"

The woman looks at me, and I feel the world slide from under my feet.