I don’t care what the Stones say, time is not on my side

I was driving past a bank the other day while listening to NPR, which is all I listen to since public radio is advertising-free and commercial radio advertising is loud, obnoxious and in my estimation, the work of the Devil. 

The announcer made note of the time: 3:30 p.m.  Exactly the same time as appeared on the bank’s big LED sign.  And my dashboard clock.  And my cell phone.  All left no doubt that it was, unequivocally, 3:30 p.m.

Thanks to online standards and ridiculously precise digital timekeeping mechanisms, every working clock in the time zone read 3:30 at that moment. Exactly sixty seconds later they all read 3:31.

I’m not sure why, but this sort of accuracy bothers me greatly. It makes me feel I’m no more than a tiny component in some vast, roaring machine hurtling blindly through the cosmos, an insignificant cog in a madly complex mechanism whose ultimate purpose I cannot begin to fathom.

That may indeed be the case, but I don’t want to be reminded of it. Perfect timekeeping does that. It reminds me the seconds are racing by so fast my eyes water.

I like my time to be sloooooow, loose and plastic, a Dali painting filled with melting clocks and rubbery scenery.  

I like pocket watch time. The old Elgin I inherited from my grandfather kept fair time. It regularly gained or lost as many as 15 minutes in any 12-hour period. If I forgot to wind it, it would cease keeping time altogether. I wound and set it each day at noon, when the bells at the Methodist church down the street signaled midday.

It wasn’t accurate, but it was accurate enough. If I arrived at an appointment early, I waited. If I arrived late, someone else waited. It generally amounted to only a few minutes either way and nobody was swept from this mortal coil due to 120 seconds unexpected “down time.”

My friend Héctor, who grew up in Mexico, once told me that when an appointment was set in his hometown it might be for a specific location, but the agreed-upon time would often be for either “the morning” or “the afternoon.” It wasn’t uncommon to wait an hour or more for the person you were meeting.

That’s how he remembers it from his youth, at any rate. This was a relaxed culture in which there was time to read a book, enjoy the scenery, gaze at a pretty señorita. Smell the roses.

I imagine all that’s changed these days. The modern Guadalajaran is undoubtedly just as time-obsessed as any busy Manhattanite. 

Elizabeth, another friend, just accepted a teaching position in a remote Alaskan village of 301 souls. Napakiak is considered “off the road,” which is Alaska-speak for “so far from civilization that the only way you can get there is by small airplane, row boat, or snowshoe, but usually a combination of all three.”

Her new house boasts a huge hole in the roof, along with (at best) sporadic electricity and plumbing. She does her laundry in a sink at the elementary school where she also sleeps because of the hole in her roof. There is (gasp!) no Internet.

It’s a rough and tumble existence, but I’ll bet the few timepieces in the village are all set to slightly different times, if the villagers bother to wear watches at all.

So far, the move has been tough on Elizabeth, but she’s a tough girl; she’ll be able to take whatever the Great White North can dish out, I’m guessing. And I have to admit I envy her the new, slower pace of life.

Especially the free time she has when classes let out for the day at 3:30. Or 3:15. Somewhere in there.

Mike Taylor's latest paperback, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available from Robbins Book List in Greenville, Michigan and in ebook format from Amazon.