Juju stood in the middle of aisle 4 of M.E. Moses Five & Dime, mesmerized. She had one, crisp twenty-dollar bill jammed in the right, front pocket of her Levi’s. It was Juju’s tenth birthday, Friday, December 24, 1971 @ 2:00 p.m. and the money was a gift from her father.
Upon receiving the cash, Juju had run to the backyard, retrieved her red Schwinn, with the black, banana seat, and high-tailed it up Oak Street to the Bellaire Shopping Center. She was on a mission as she flew down the sidewalk past the Super X Drug Store, and parked the bike in front of her favorite store, making record time.
Not one for fancy stuff or jewelry, it had shocked Juju’s mother when she had told her that she had been eyeing a watch at Moses. Not the pink princess watch, with the real gold border, not the Batman watch, and certainly not the Brady Bunch one! Juju had zeroed in on the best of the lot, in her opinion, the Mick.
She plunked down the $14.50, plus tax and the watch was hers. Juju rode back home at a more leisurely pace, feeling her double-digit years…this was what getting older was about, going shopping and buying something with your own money, on your own time.
Mickey’s yellow gloves joined at the 12 and it was Christmas day. Juju got a guitar that Christmas morning that she never learned to play. It did look very cool resting in the corner of her bedroom by her record collection though. The Lite-Bright had been on her wish list and was under the tree, along with the requested Chemistry Set. Juju had the time of her life.
Time is a dimension in which events can be ordered from the past through the present and into the future.
Time keeps things from happening all at once.
Juju put on the Mick and stood in the middle of her bathroom, looking into the mirror. It was the end of her fiftieth year on earth and she was once again feeling her double-digit age. The visage looking back at her in the mirror was quite different from the girl on the bike.
Mickey had a new leather band and crystal. Time had required some upkeep, but overall he had survived the years well.
He had been there every day at 3:05 p.m. when the bell sounded, ending Mrs. Threadgill’s fourth-grade class. He had been there in 7th grade history and 11th grade Trigonometry. He had been on her wrist as she walked the stage to graduate. Mickey had matriculated to college and beyond with Juju.
Mickey got wound up sometimes, but usually remained steady, and gave her a secure squeeze on her left wrist, as the time marched on. Mickey kept everything from happening at once.
Surprising as it may be to most non-scientists and even to some scientists, Albert Einstein concluded in his later years that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. Einstein’s belief in an undivided solid reality was clear to him, so much so that he completely rejected the separation we experience as the moment of now. He believed there is no true division between past and future, there is rather a single existence.
Juju’s single existence has been quantified by one $14.50 watch. Her past, her present, and her future tick away on a 1971 model Timex Mickey Mouse. She proved Einstein’s theory as she stood in the bathroom, staring into the mirror….staring down at the display case on aisle 4. She raised her left wrist to her ear….tick- tock, tick- tock. Juju looked and found the time to be Christmas.
Spend your time well and have a joyous one!
Dyke in the Heart of Texas 