{"id":478,"date":"2026-06-25T12:55:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/?page_id=478"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:55:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:55:02","slug":"montana-watch","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/?page_id=478","title":{"rendered":"MONTANA WATCH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-27d32ccd12ffde11c890879b9cbf6e8d wp-block-paragraph\">This is maybe the brightest memory I have of my father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-9039ce67562a49ab713e82b0ab8fcd87 wp-block-paragraph\">We went into the city. Wandered through shops. So many trinkets everywhere. And somehow we ended up in a watch store. That&#8217;s where I saw it \u2014 a Montana watch. It was the 90s. An electronic watch with a backlight. Sixteen melodies, I think. An alarm. A steel band. It was cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-c41c5a18ac94f432c9def31fe8c5f796 wp-block-paragraph\">I wanted it. But we didn&#8217;t have the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-a041d2bdaf5cb87992ba800291691a98 wp-block-paragraph\">So we bought a different watch. I was still happy with it. We came home. Dad left for work. And\u2026 I think it broke. I don&#8217;t remember exactly what happened. I just remember being so disappointed. I think I even cried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5d094ac9b0a438c4037914e2b2adfa8c wp-block-paragraph\">Dad said he would take it back for repairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-4c1b823b155aa8cc4a8c977b66c25f54 wp-block-paragraph\">He left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-89a98629eb9d889f82793e3ffc658e3a wp-block-paragraph\">Then I remember him coming back. Walking into the room. I was sitting on the sofa. And he pulled out that watch. The Montana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1b2e73a26db01ca4bd39f9cf51917752 wp-block-paragraph\">Oh, God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3fc1cef44e53aaa0ff855d972c0ab23c wp-block-paragraph\">I jumped off that bed. Leapt into the air. Wrapped my arms and legs around him. Hugged him with everything I had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-78b8a647f3f3f4be5e41a35a629ce4fa wp-block-paragraph\">That feeling \u2014 it has followed me my whole life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6de660e45fed8b9e6c2df3ab0379e139 wp-block-paragraph\">After that, I kept that watch next to me when I slept. Every night. I don&#8217;t even remember where it went. I tried to hold onto it for a while. But I lost it somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-14e79262d8ca14d3a5ae0edb39ba6d01 wp-block-paragraph\">We rarely hugged, my father and I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-white-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b70058f57b21a610958e328569f2c42e wp-block-paragraph\">But that moment \u2014 that was the brightest moment of my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is maybe the brightest memory I have of my father. We went into the city. Wandered through shops. So many trinkets everywhere. And somehow we ended up in a watch store. That&#8217;s where I saw it \u2014 a Montana watch. It was the 90s. An electronic watch with a backlight. Sixteen melodies, I think. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-478","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":479,"href":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/478\/revisions\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddolganov.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}