In my bedroom, secure in a box on my dresser, is a watch my grandfather left to me when he passed in 1991. It’s a fine device, a Universal Geneve, and from what my mother tells me, my grandfather left the watch behind with explicit instructions that it be given to me after he passed.

Being a nice watch, and I at the time just a boy, my mother kept the watch in a dresser in her bedroom for safe-keeping. Over time, she forgot about the watch, and only when my parents moved four years ago did she find it and pass it along.

Receiving that watch as a grown man, learning that my grandfather had left it for me, was, much like the event from Friday’s post, as if my grandfather had reached out and spoken to me from the grave.

As I said, I was given that watch four years ago. Since then, it has remained untouched— save for the few times I’ve felt the urge to look upon it— in the box on my dresser. Being a writer and speaker, I’ve spent most every day the last five years in gym shorts and ratty tee shirts. My life, outside of the occasional book signing, has not necessitated dressing nicely, and it certainly hasn’t required the assistance of a timepiece.

That will all change next week, though, as I am pleased to announce I’ve accepted a teaching position at a local public high school, and will begin in-class instruction next Thursday. I will continue working on my next book in the evenings, and will still manage a speaking calendar, however, the majority of my days this coming year will be spent introducing high school students to friends like Fitzgerald and Faulkner and teaching them the beauty of the English language.

And as I turn over this new page in my life and career, I am both thankful and proud that, as I walk through those double doors next Thursday, on my wrist will be that same timepiece my grandfather wore the day he, some twenty-five years ago, retired from his medical practice.