Historical September–October 2025 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Whatever was I thinking?
I mean, I should know better by now. You see, I recently ordered a smart watch, gasp. Gasp is because technology is not my friend. Worse, double-gasp, I ordered it online so there was no one to show me how it works. Despite Hawkeye’s appearance, he really works to be part of the “in crowd.” He’s never been quite successful but he keeps trying.
If the term “in crowd” seems odd, it means that you were born too late to appreciate fine, classic music.
To prove my point, here are the first four lines compelling lines from “The In Crowd” by Dobie Gray. I’m in with the in crowd (Do-do-do) I go where the in crowd goes (Do-do-do) I’m in with the in crowd (Do-do-do) And I know what the in crowd knows (Da-da-da-da) Can you feel what you missed? Do-do-do??? Anyway, wanting to be current, I decided that my iPhone doesn’t give me enough status so it was time to get a smart watch. Further wanting to be ahead of the game, I didn’t go the easy route and purchase an Apple smart watch. No, not Hawkeye.
After reading the reviews (sort of reviews, they were on Facebook), he purchased a Spade 4 Smartwatch.
It could do everything and more, from monitoring body functions to playing music and get this, it showed what time it is! Heart be still.
After waiting for weeks, it arrived in the mail and Hawkeye gleefully opened the box. Things quickly went downhill.
The first thing I needed to do was attach the watch band to the actual watch. How hard can that be, I wondered?
The answer was 13 minutes of hard, eye-squinting, and frustrating effort.
It turns out that there’s this teeny-tiny post that needs to be pushed down so that it will fit in the watch receptacle.
To be fair, for probably 11 of those 13 minutes Hawkeye didn’t realize the miniscule post was there; no wonder he couldn’t reduce and insert it. At minute 11, though, he read the directions and that helped a lot. Actually, and this is part of Hawkeye’s problem, he could only read the directions after he found a magnifying glass. Yep, his eyeglasses weren’t strong enough for the itsy-bitsy print. Can you feel that frustration mounting? One of the reasons he purchased this particular watch is because it can measure stress, but it was probably just as well that the watch wasn’t activated. Once the watch band was affixed, Hawkeye wisely saw (though the magnifying class) that the Spade 4 needed to be charged by inserting the charger into a computer USB port. In-crowd Hawkeye knew where that was! So he inserted the charger into the port and the other end of the charger, now magnetized, was drawn to the watch. Is this great? No, not really. Despite the magnetic attraction of the charger to the watch, Hawkeye could not get a connection.
After 18 more minutes of fumbling, his wife entered the room and asked why he was so frustrated. (How did she know that, he wondered, because the stress monitor on the watch wasn’t live?) Hawkeye explained and she said, “Let me try it.” Well, something had changed in the computer because a lightning bolt symbol appeared on the watch face as it began to charge. Hawkeye, ever the optimist, thought it was smooth sailing now. Bear in mind, Hawkeye’s track record of optimistic predictions isn’t very strong.
A few years ago he predicted a City-County merger, that the Cardinals would win the pennant, and that being president would cause Trump to start being honest. Oh well.
It turns out that when charged, the Spade 4 watch face features half a dozen incredible icons that were terribly distracting (and terribly tiny!). How could he get rid of those extra battery-sucking images? Who needs a tiny pic of someone running or swimming on the face when he’s sitting at his computer?
The directions weren’t helpful, even with a magnifying glass.
But he didn’t give up, and finally after lots of trial & error, Hawkeye managed to dismiss the extra images. Hawkeye was so proud!
But then the time vanished too; rather, the numbers that showed the time vanished! Hawkeye tried shaking his wrist, that worked sometimes, and he played with the dial, that worked at other times.
But mostly the face was blank.
This smart watch isn’t very smart, Hawkeye thought. What to do? Ever resourceful, Hawkeye sent an email to Spade customer support.
To their credit, they responded within a day. Not to Hawkeye’s credit, he couldn’t figure out how to do what they suggested. Their direction seemed simple: “You can find the Raise to Wake option in your watch settings.” Alas, Hawkeye could never find that setting, even with the magnifying glass. It’s a small watch, but that setting was hidden.
However, gritty Hawkeye didn’t give up, his chubby fingers (part of the problem?) kept pushing and moving. One spot on the watch face, for example, opened up a dozen different icons and each one of them opened to still other possibilities when pressed.
He was lost in his watch. Weeks later, there is good news.
A tiny set of numbers at the top-left of the watch tells the time and date 24-7. And Hawkeye figured out how
to turn the button to see the time in BIG numbers, his heart rate, how long he slept, and, gasp, his stress level. Hooray! Candidly, though, he has no idea how he did this, none, zip, nada. It’s a good example of tenacity and luck being more important than knowledge and skills.
But Hawkeye is encouraged because he mastered technology.
He just dusted off the VCR that was in the basement so he can hook it up and see favorite television shows.
He can’t wait to catch-up on Desperate Housewives. p.s.
If you have a Spade 4 smart phone, Hawkeye would like to hear from you.
Please email him at trhoerr@aol.com.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September–October 2025.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Closing smart phone rather than smartwatch source wording retained.
Original source: SD_Times2025_09.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
