dad

The Stories Behind My Dad’s Omega Speedmaster

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I’ve written before about my dad’s Omega Speedmaster Professional, now my Omega Speedmaster Professional, and how he passed it down to me. But before I forget, I want to write about a few of the stories he told me about that watch. They’ve always stuck with me.

When I first got it, I thought he’d bought it in 1969. Turns out that wasn’t true. After some research, the serial number puts it around 1970 or 1971. When my dad was still alive he confirmed that timeframe. Still, an absolute classic.

One thing he told me that always made me laugh was how Omega almost never buys back their old watches, but more than once, when he sent it in for maintenance, he claims they offered to buy it from him. He always said no.

My dad was a physician assistant who worked in trauma and surgery, so the watch saw some things. He used to joke that it had been sterilized more times than he could count, which, considering where it had been, I appreciated hearing.

He told me about one time when one of the links on the band came apart while he was literally working inside someone’s chest, and the watch slipped off his wrist. They had to fish it out, clean it thoroughly, and fix the band afterward. I still have that original band, so I know it got fixed.

I can’t imagine that would be allowed now. I don’t know what the current hospital rules are, but I’m guessing “no watches in open chests” is probably written down somewhere these days, sterilized or not.

When I tell people that story, some of them are grossed out, others think it’s amazing. I’m firmly in the “amazing” camp. It’s history, after all.

Another quirk is the bezel. Instead of the usual tachymeter, his has what Omega called a pulsometer bezel. It’s what I grew up seeing on his wrist, so to me, that’s just what the watch is supposed to look like. When I had it serviced maybe ten years ago, they asked if I wanted them to replace it since it doesn’t rotate anymore. I said absolutely not. The bezel’s part of its story.

Years ago, when I was living in New York, I brought it to the Omega Boutique for maintenance. The guy behind the counter said he’d have someone take a look and disappeared into the back. A few minutes later, an older gentleman, clearly one of their watchmakers, came out excited to see it. He thought the pulsometer bezel was great and said it was a really special piece. He also told me they could do the service in-house instead of sending it back to Switzerland, which was a relief. Apparently if it was slightly older it would need to travel for service.

It was nice seeing someone else appreciate it that much. That old watchmaker was genuinely happy to work on it.

I don’t wear the original metal band anymore, it was always a little loose even when my dad wore it, and apparently that specific band design is rare now. So I keep it stored safely and use a NATO strap instead.

It’s funny how polarizing this watch can be. Some people hear its stories and get squeamish. Others think it’s the coolest thing ever. I’m clearly in the second group.

Every time I take it in for service, it still gets attention. It always starts a conversation. And I love that.

The Story of My First Movie

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It’s pretty likely that the first movie I ever saw wasn’t actually the one I’m talking about today. What I’m going to talk about is the first movie I remember seeing. I don’t even recall being in the theater for the entire thing, but I know I was there because I have one vivid memory from it. Based on the release date and my approximate age at the time, I must have been pretty young. Looking back, the fact that this movie is the first one I remember says a lot about me.

If you know me, you might have guessed that the first movie I remember seeing in a theater was Star Wars: A New Hope. It came out in May 1977, which would have made me a little over three years old. I’m not sure how long it was in theaters, so I can’t say exactly when I was taken to see it, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume I was about three. Was that a movie a three-year-old should see? The short answer: probably not. And, in full disclosure, before writing that sentence, I looked up when I first took my own daughters to see a Star Wars movie in theaters—it was Solo, the Han Solo film. They were five, so I think it’s safe to say that three was probably a bit young. (I’m not a hypocrite on this!)

I don’t recall if my mom was there. She isn’t in my memory, nor is my sister. That’s why I think my dad might have taken me by himself. All I really remember is getting up—or maybe sitting down—during that scene where Darth Vader is choking the general who, frankly, was being a bit cross with him.

That’s it. That’s all I remember just that one vivid moment. But I have a pretty good feeling that it set the stage for my love of the genre. With me wanting to write more recently this was one of those topics I wanted to write about. It also should come first before me talking about other stuff about me slightly older anyway.

The Story of My Dad’s Haircut My Mom Didn’t Even Recognize Him

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There is a photo of my parents from the mid to late 70s I would assume where at one point within the past 20 years my mom went to my sister while looking at the picture who is that strange guy I’m standing next to and my sister had to go mom that’s dad the reason she didn’t recognize him was his hair was radically different than he has now let’s just say it was a hairstyle very much embracing the 1970s His hair in the photo on this entry is close but not 70’s enough to represent what it looked like.

I miss you dad…

The Story of The Prescriptions Pads

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I am not really sure what my dad would think of his prescription pad’s being used as note pads. He was a man who brought me home scrubs from work so i could use them as Pajama’s. Based off that he might think this is a good use of paper.

Photo from my mom’s use of these when we last visited NY.

Public Service Announcement

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What I have to say is not new. I learned it from my dad. He was a strong believer in clarifying this misconception. It came up recently when the girls, my mom and I were at a chocolate factory tour in Germany on half term Break.

This is very important so i will only go over it once. White Chocolate is not Chocolate.

Enjoy your holidays…

The Story of My Dad and MASH

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Today is my dad’s birthday. He would be 78 today. I miss you dad. I thought today was appropriate to post this entry i had written a while ago and just haven’t scheduled to publish.

Growing up It felt like most people thought that my dad was a doctor. Big reveal he was not a doctor. He was what they call a physician’s assistant. The way he always described it was that he could do about 95% of what a Doctor does. The difference was that he needed a doctor to sign his chart versus a doctor being fully autonomous. The advantage of physician assistants is its two years of medical school versus four years of medical school to be a doctor.

My dad went through physician assistant School in the mid-70s. A few years after the movie and show MASH came out. Since I was born after the show started I cannot remember a time when he wasn’t watching it if it was on TV. I’m pretty sure that if i had ever asked ever he would have said that was his favourite show of all time.

For my dad I think it was more than a TV show. He enjoy it and thought it was funny yet I also think he felt the adrenaline rush of the glorified combat situation, even if it was a comedy. So much so that I remember during the first Gulf War he had offered to go into the field. I don’t know if it was at a field hospital or at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany however I know he discussed it to some degree. Retrospectively I am not sure how serious he was. I think on some level he wanted to go however on another it was never going to happen. In the end it never did. That never stopped him from thinking of himself as Hawkeye. I’m pretty sure that means one of his friends was trapper. And remembering this particular Doctor friend who he worked many shifts together when i was growing up they were as funny together as Hawkeye and Trapper.

The Origin Of my Origin Stories

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For my birthday I felt a bit nostalgic. I finally will post this entry I wrote almost a year ago. I simply had a lot I wrote and never was sure when to post it. So here I am.

For over a year now (I started writing this post in Jan 2020) I have been thinking about things I am interested in writing about. As much as I like to share, this blog is really for me to just write above all else. That is why I jump around to several different unrelated topics. In thinking about what I write about or want to write about I broke down my writing into a few different categories. Some of them like technology or writing about the girls I’ve been doing for a while. Writing about life as an ex-pat is also not really new anymore either.

There are some distinctly new categories I decided to focus some time on as well. One of which is stories about my dad. The inspiration for that came about around the time he died. In talking about all the funny interesting stories about him he got thinking that I wanted to write some of them down. I have written and posted a few already. There are many more I just haven’t wanted to address however they seem like pretty good stories.

After I started brainstorming about ideas to write about my dad I realized I probably want to write about some things about my childhood and things that happend long ago (aka childhood or single life). The working “category” for those are my origin stories. This particular post was inspired because there’s one story I want to tell. As I started thinking about how to tell it, I realized it is really three separate stories. Each one related and building off the other one. Or that is how it flows for me. As I fleshed those stories out I realised there are more beyond those that I find interesting and would want to tell.

Another category I don’t write a lot about is work. I used to do that often. If you search the archives of this blog you’ll find many work-related posts. There used to be more. However I documented previously how I had to curtail that due to minor issue while working at Parksearch. Nothing bad happened. It was actually pretty funny, even when it happened. I can’t seem to find the right keyword to find that story or else I would share it now. Long story short I originally wrote about work long before it was common and became probilimatic with conflicts of interest. Now I simply do not do it to be safe.

If I orchestrate this properly this intro post will go up right before I start posting some origin stories. Now all I have to do is go write them.

The photo in this post is of a rocket launch pad my dad had at our beach club in the late 1980’s. My dad and rockets will be a post at some point however when looking for a photo that best sums up any origin stories i thought a rocket one was the most appropriate.

W Sisters Short on My Haircut

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The other day I got a haircut. For me that’s a pretty rudimentary thing to do. I get one every couple of weeks. The girls like to rub the back of my semi-shaved head. They think the short hairs feel good on their hands.

This haircut however T for some reason was patting my head. Then she started measuring how much hair I had with her finger. She proceeded to tell me that I had a lot of hair. The funny thing is I don’t. I keep it pretty short. Compared to her I have almost no hair. She then said she wanted to see me with more hair. I told her I was not going to grow my hair out.

I did let it grow a little in High School. Never liked it. I then told her that my dad, her puppy used to have a really long/big hair. She didn’t really believe me so I offered to show her and A picture.

When I shoulder the picture she said something like “Oh my gosh”. Then she asked if that was taken long ago. I said it what is however I remember his hair that long.

It reminded me of a funny story my sister told me. A few years ago my mum was wondering out loud to that strange man was standing next to her in a picture. My sister said that dad. I can only assume he had a huge head of hair at a time

My Dad’s Stories and His Idea Of Urgent

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At the time of me sitting down to write this post it’s been about seven months since my dad passed away. Just dictating that sentence got me choked up for second. I finally feel comfortable enough to start writing a few little stories I’ve been wanting to tell about my dad. I jotted down a bunch of ideas in January and I hope to remember more of them. Some stand on my mind more than others. Here goes.

My dad was a physicians assistant. Since I was pretty little he had worked in an emergency room. He loved the excitement of a good trauma. From every indication he was really good at it also. Being trained in medicine and working in an emergency room you tend to gauge or triage things differently than someone who probably doesn’t save lives for a living.

When someone would ask him to do something, usually my mom and claim that it was urgent to him. His response would be something like how badly are you bleeding? If the answer was not a lot or not at all then he would reply that is not urgent.

So basically to him unless you’re bleeding it’s not urgent. To take it a step further he said on several occasions that you’re not really bleeding unless blood shooting across the room and splattering on a wall somewhere. He was basically describing an aortic bleed.

That was my dad. He was pretty black-and-white on those kind of things. Of course I knew exactly where I stood when you needed him to make an urgent priority call.