My Father had a penchant for jewelry; especially watches--well rings also; yes definitely rings with "fake bling".
I guess you could say I have at thing for drawing watches based on my projects for my NYU "Fun 2 Draw and Paint" class. I think that began in high school when Dr. Braley created an assignment to draw an object then do a pen and ink drawing of it followed by a cartoon type drawing of it. One of my favorite assignments and I have used the format it in my classroom. Well I drew an old wrist watch that had the been broken and you could see the inner workings. That drawing was done so well it was realistic and photographic; and it disappeared after I handed it in. I am sure Dr. Braley kept it for his private collection. It was one of the best things I have ever drawn and I still grieve its loss.
Enough about me, my Father, yes he liked his jewelry and whatever it meant to him in life whether it be showing off his wealth of "big man on the block" status.
Would like to say My Father was never gonna be that in his earthly life--I respected his humility and encouragement of me and others. Maybe he was making up for the being a child of the Depression and living in very meager settings. Or he had a low self-esteem due to some event in his childhood or early adult life. His wealth was not in money and personal possessions, but in his love and encouragement of those in need of sustenance or confidence. I am not a psychologist, but that is how I saw it from my point of view.
Back to the Watch. So my Parents both came to New York City to see The Green Bird, the my first big Broadway show as an Associate Scenic Designer. Christine Jones was the Scenic Designer and it was her first Broadway Design and I was chosen by her to shepherd her through the process of redesign and the construction of the Set. I knew what was at stake for her and I did my best to provide my talent and knowledge of the "process" from sketch to full-on Broadway Production. By the way, Christine is a very lovely person and I wished we would have done a few more projects.
To Entertain my Parents I took them to Canal Street to see the vendors booths in hopes of scoring a nice fake bag for my Mother and of course my Father saw the Jewelry vendors and went NUTS! He soon was out of sight on his own Safari of, find a new watch and maybe some rings; like he needed any more in his life.
Well he emerged from one of the booths and we decided it was time to go back uptown to their Hotel. We got all the way to the N,R, Q Subway Platform to to uptown; waiting for a train. That is when Dad noticed his prize "Rolex" had stopped ticking. I told him to check the other watches he bought. They were fine. Then I said, "you need to go back to that booth and either get your money back or a replacement watch. Do not leave until you know it is working!" I guess I became the parent here, HAH! Anyway, he did that and arrived back at the Train Platform just in time to catch a train. Back then the N, R Line was called "Never and Rarely" at that time of night.
He loved that watch and sported it all the time. Well when he passed, I was going through his stuff to box it up for storage or a Garage Sale, and I found the watch. It was not running. So I asked my Brother and Sister if they wanted it and they said no. I took it back to NYC to get it running again and the years passed and I had forgotten about the watch. Well, I was going through some of my things and found it and the watch my wife gave me when we first started dating. Both were not running, so I took them to a watch repair store here in Naples and they cleaned both and replaced the batteries. I was "tickled" [old saying that my grandparents used for happiness plus amazement] and I thought, hmmmm--who might want to have Dad's prized time telling possession. My Brother just retired and I thought I would send it to him for his great achievement of maintaining 41 years of college professor appointment. So now he is in possession of the "knock-off Rolex" from Canal Street.
