Phares O’Daffer

For 70 years, I’ve kept an old “gold” pocket watch in a red leather box in my dresser.  It has survived 16 moves. I always know where it is, but rarely look at it.

Recently, a friend mentioned that he had restored an old pocket watch he owned, and I wondered if I should do the same.So I forthwith took my watch to the watch expert and asked him, with positive anticipation, if it was worth restoring.

“Well,” he said, after giving the watch only a tad more than a cursory glance,  “I wouldn’t mess with it.  Pocket watches like this are a dime a dozen.”

On the way home, the more I thought about the watch, the angrier I got. A dime a dozen, indeed!  He didn’t really know anything about my watch, and strangely, I had ignored what I knew about it too. I realized again how valuable my watch really was.

The watch belonged to my father Ray O’daffer. It was bequeathed to me after he was caught in a post-hole digger and killed in a farm accident when he was 49 years old and I was 15 years old. My dad liked this watch and always carried it (as on the day of his accident) in the watch pocket of his overalls.

Perhaps watches like these are a dime a dozen, but my watch is priceless. I shouldn’t have needed a watch expert to tell me that.