Time for OCD? Yes

With all the rules, regulations, check-lists, acronyms, memory work, methodical stowage and general fussiness associated with good seamanship, one could be forgiven with linking successful sailoring and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Maybe even a touch of the 'Spergers.

Yes, it's 12.12.12, 12:12:12 hours, EST

Being largely unconscious of why I interrupted my holiday shopping to take this picture in a busy mall I seldom otherwise patronize, I shall not argue the point too strenuously. I will note that the time on my hands is precise, indeed atomic, despite my cracked crystal.

Write your own jokes here about my mental makeup on this otherwise meaningless post. Assuming we aren't headed for the Mayan Apocalypse, in which case I'll be below decks with the rum stocks.

A brief anecdote on the subjective nature of time: In the context of hearing a joking reference to "when will the slaughter of our oldest citizens cease? A new oldest person seems to die every couple of weeks!", I recalled that some 20 years ago, I had a girlfriend whose mother was adopted in the 1940s by a middle-aged woman who couldn't have kids, hence the adoption.

When I knew her (my girlfriend's granny) in the early '90s, she was 101. Her own grandmother had lived until 98, and had been born in 1819. The two, 1819 grandma and 1890s grandma, had been close, and many "old timey" stories had been exchanged.

So, my girlfriend's grandmother's grandmother had a) been born in the same year as Queen Victoria, b) had been born before Napoleon had died, c) had children before the widespread arrival of photography, and d) at the age of 18 had personally witnessed events in Toronto that were part of the 1837 Rebellion, a minor historical event, but one that led to the formation of Canada as an independent country, which happened when grandma's grandma was already middle-aged.

Hence, old people are like time machines. Get an oldie who knew an oldie as a kid, and you can hear at one remove human experiences nudging 200 years old. If you are fortunate, you may hear them as well. I realized recently that some scary old guys in my youth, particularly one I recall with a bandaid where his nose should've been, were actually World War I veterans, who of course would have been 70-80 years old in the late '60s when I was a nipper. I suppose, being capable of math, I knew that, but I have been quite used to the idea that they were mostly dead, most of my life, and that WWII guys were "the elders". One fails to take into account that they are aging at the same rate as everyone else, and that time is a very slippery customer.