Five years ago today

I don't remember the actual date. It would be easy to look up. But it was in October of 2003, and it was the day of the BYU Homecoming Parade. As was today. So I'll claim it was five years ago today. This is what was significant about that day:

Unlike today, I went to watch the parade with my family. I was living in the Deseret Towers (may they rest in peace) at the time, and walked down to the arboretum where my family typically has gone to watch the parade. I don't know if they were at the arboretum this year, or if they even went at all because I didn't think about it until too late, and they never contacted me to see if I wanted to join them, so maybe they didn't go? I'll have to clear this up with them shortly. But as I was walking past the Law building, I remember distinctly thinking that time did not matter on this day. I don't think I was wearing a watch. My reason for this will be made clear shortly. But I remember thinking, "there are days when time matters, but this isn't one of them," or possibly, "today, unlike some other days, time doesn't matter." I really don't remember the exact words that I thought, see, but I remember the overall idea of the thoughts that I had while walking past the law building. It was overcast or early, probably overcast because it wouldn't have been very early. And the leaves on the trees near the law building had changed from green to yellow, meaning that they were yellow on this particular day. After the parade, I went shopping with my family. I'm sure at least two (probably three) of my brothers were there, as was my mom. I'm not sure about the rest of the family. My sister would have gone, in all likelihood. We went to K-mart. I think it was the Provo K-mart, though it could have been Spanish Fork. $50 says it was Provo. And of all things, I decided to buy a watch. Which didn't seem out of the ordinary at the time - I needed a new one. The band had broken on the old watch, so I kept it in my pocket. Then the face got crushed. It was plastic instead of glass. Glass would probably have been crushed just as easily. So I needed a new watch. But it wasn't until a little later that it struck me as unusual that I should buy a watch on the very day in which time didn't matter. I chose one with a silver band and a dark blue face. Acqua brand, with indiglo function. I'm wearing it as I type. I haven't had to change the battery in the last five years. I didn't wear this watch for a few months in Argentina for fear that I would get robbed. (I did get robbed once while I wasn't wearing this watch, and the punks would have certainly taken it if I had been). But I kept it by my bed and used it to check the time whenever I woke up during the night and wondered what time it was. This is where the indiglo function became very useful. I recently wore it while camping in Guatemalan subtropical forests. Our only water supply (other than the huge amount of rain that fell essentially every night) was the Usumacinta river. We swam in the river to bathe. The first day I did this, I forgot to take off my watch. It says it's water resistant to 30 meters. Apparently water resistant has nothing to do with keeping water from filling the inside of the watch. So until I left Guatemala, really, there were droplets of water inside the face of the watch that made it difficult to read, especially when it got hot (all the time) - the water inside the watch would heat up and evaporate, but wouldn't escape and would just turn to kind of a fog on the inside of the glass. After this the indiglo function quickly dimmed until it stopped working all together. Then after a couple of weeks the watch finally stopped keeping time. I took the back off the watch when I returned to Utah to let things dry out, and intended to buy a new battery. But after a day or two I reassembled things and the watch returned to life. Even the indiglo function. And to this moment, it still runs just fine.

So even though time didn't matter when I bought this watch five years ago today, time did matter today. I checked the watch several times. Usually because I was late. And because I wasn't sure if I should leave the beekeeping class early. I was glad that I didn't. Some of the best information came at the end, and there wouldn't have been a telephone for me to conduct political surveys if I'd arrived at my next stop any earlier. Also, I needed to know when to take my next cold-eeze lozenge. I've heard more than one person swear by these drops. I got a cold on the banks of the Usumacinta and took them and was well sooner than anyone else. So I'm counting on similar results this time around.



The above-mentioned rain: