Timepiece

Full disclosure here: My daughter Claire suggested this post. I emailed her Saturday night to remind her to "fall back." She's a busy college student; I thought she might forget.

Here's what she wrote back: "I think all my clocks turned themselves back. You should blog about that. Now clocks turn themselves back. Computers, phones, you know."

She's onto something, I think. Not just that the ritual of "falling back," that satisfying stoppage of time, is more often accomplished by a distant satellite these days. But also about the digital divide. Look at the wrists of young people; you won't see many watches. I wonder, too, how many clocks they're buying. My guess is precious few. When time is always in the palm of your hand, why display it on a wall?

The very concept of a timepiece, of a device whose only purpose is to tell time, is going the way of the slide rule. As a watch-wearer, cuckoo-clock owner and occasional Luddite, I find something to lament about that.