Have You Got the Time?

There is an old joke that goes back at least to the cold war. The setting is always some exotic world capitol.

On the busy city street an American tourist stops a man carrying two suitcases and asks for the correct time. The other man sets the cases on the ground, looks at the dial of the instrument on his wrist and says with a heavy Russian accent, “It is 8:39 Greenwich Mean Time, 12:39 in Moscow, the temperature is 19 degrees Celsius — 67 degrees Fahrenheit — with 47% humidity, and the barometric pressure is rising.”

“That’s fantastic!” exclaims the first man, “You can tell all that from that little watch?”

“Da. Latest Russian technology.” [In the telling, this man usually sounds a lot like Henry Kissinger, but I'm not sure that's relevant.... ~Tim]

“Wow. You could make a fortune with that in the States.”

“Not until we get rid of these,” said the Russian picking up the two large cases.

“Why? What’s in there?”

“The batteries.”

I never imagined myself being nostalgic for the cold war, but in some ways I am. The dangers of nuclear annihilation were all too real, but the memory of school children learning to duck and cover under their desks in the event of an attack makes it all seem quaintly benign. In retrospect it seems almost as if we spent years trying to scare communists while they tried to scare us. Any war is bad, but I’m pretty sure that no one on either side was scared to death….

Anyway, I recently read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, a very entertaining account of his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail. I don’t think I’ll ever be (or ever was, for that matter) in good enough physical condition to hike the whole thing. Only a small percentage of those who attempt it complete the trek. I’m not sure I would try even if I were in better shape. But I definitely want to see parts of it. I was reminded of the joke above when I read this exchange:

Eight or nine other people were scattered around the summit, including one youngish, rather pudgy man on his own in a very new and expensive-looking windcheater. He had some kind of handheld electronic device with which he was taking mysterious readings of the sky or landscape.

He noticed me watching and said, in a tone that suggested he was hoping someone would take an interest, “It’s an Enviro Monitor.”

“Oh yes?” I responded politely.

“Measures eighty values — temperature, UV index, dew point, you name it.” He tilted the screen so I could see it. “That’s heat stress.” It was some meaningless number that ended in two decimal places. “It does solar radiation,” he went on, “barometric pressure, wind chill, rainfall, humidity — ambient and active — even estimated burn time adjusted for skin type.”

“Does it bake cookies?” I asked.

He didn’t like this. “There are times when it could save your life, believe me,” he said, a little stoutly. I tried to imagine a situation in which I might find myself dangerously imperiled by a rising dew point and could not. But I didn’t want to upset the man, so I sad: “What’s that?” and pointed at a blinking figure in the upper lefthand corner of the screen.

“Ah, I’m not sure what that is. But this –” he stabbed the console of buttons– “this is solar radiation.” It was another meaningless figure, to three decimal places. “It’s very low today,” he said, and angled the machine to take another reading. “Yeah, very low today.” Somehow I knew this already. In fact, although I couldn’t attest any of it to three decimal places, I had a pretty good notion of the weather conditions generally, on account of I was out in them. The interesting thing about the man was that he had no pack, and so no waterproofs, and was wearing shorts and sneakers. If the weather did swiftly deteriorate, and in New England it most assuredly can, he would probably die, but at least he had a machine that would tell him when and let him know his final dew point.

Kneel down with your head between your knees and cover the back of your neck with your hands [and kiss your ass good-bye...].