Time doesn't diminish power of a watch

When does a boy become a man?

When he turns 18 or 21? When he graduates from high school? When he drives? When he has sex? When he marries or fathers a child? When he moves out and can pay his own bills? When he acquires some symbol of manhood?

Who knows? But I discovered what I associate with manhood last weekend: A watch, which is crazy.

My stepmother died in December and last weekend I took a road trip to see my 83-year-old dad. He's doing well physically and mentally, but he's 83. And he's my dad. And he's a recent widower.

On Saturday at his house, he casually asked if I was interested in some jewelry, because my stepmother bought him various bracelets and rings over the years. She apparently also purchased an electric razor for him annually – he had a drawer filled with new models. When you have some money and are approaching 80, I guess you stick with what works.

I don't wear jewelry, but didn't want to blow him off. Dad showed me some items, urging me to take them and do whatever I wanted with them. Like me, he doesn't really collect stuff.

I looked at the bracelets, some rings . . . and saw his old watch.

The watch from my childhood.

I was suddenly transported back to childhood. That was the watch he wore the entire time I was a kid – if not the exact model, at least the same style. It was a gold-colored model with a clock face that had no numbers, just hands. It also had one of those "twist-o-flex" wristbands that I associate with having hairs pulled out of my forearms. The watch was probably nothing special – I suspect tens of thousands of businessmen wore them when I was a kid – but that watch reflected my childhood view of what a man wore.

My mom died when I was 7. My dad remarried when I was 8. So my childhood was split between two mothers, but Dad was there all the time. He was my model of a man and his watch was apparently representative of that.

I remember going into his bedroom as a child and putting on his watch. It was way too big for my wrist, but I would flop my hand around to see how it looked to wear a man's watch.

In my boy brain, there would be a day in the future when I would be a man. I would know I was a man because I would wear one of those watches with a twist-o-flex wristband.

I didn't want to be an accountant like Dad – I wanted to be the Giants' radio play-by-play announcer – but I associated adulthood with that style of watch. I still do.

Last Saturday, I swallowed hard and told my dad I would gladly take the watch. I don't know if it works – I suspect it doesn't. I don't know if it fits my wrist – it's probably still too big. I don't know if it's in style – probably not.

But I'm keeping it. Maybe someday I'll grow into it.

I'm now older than my dad was when I moved out of his house. But I still feel like a little kid when I see his watch. Someday, maybe I'll dump my digital Timex watch with the Velcro band for the clock-face, adult twist-o-flex model. Then I'll know I'm a man.

Strange, isn't it?

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.