We were driving down Guadalupe by the State Hospital a while back. I glanced over to see something I hadn’t thought about in years. The tiny watch repair shop.

As a small boy I had been there several times with my mother to drop off or pickup a watch. Back in an earlier day (the early 60s) watches needed repairing, cleaning or adjusting pretty often.

I guess I was puzzled by not only how small the place was, but how the watch fixer was able to get into such a small place. Then one day we arrived at about the same time the proprietor did and it all came together.

The man got out of his station wagon, by assembling his wheel chair, sliding into it and then wheeling up to the door. At that point he unlocked the door, spun around and backed his chair in, dropped a wooden counter top/ working table down between him and us. Now he was ready to take a look at the watch we had brought in.

In the space not much wider than 4′ and maybe a depth of 15′, he had everything he needed in little bins along the wall. He would roll back and forth as needed.

I think he also repaired cigarette lighters, like Zippo’s. I don’t remember him working on clocks. I guess there wasn’t room enough.

I figured that anyone working in that shop had to go elsewhere to use the facilities. There sure wasn’t room there, at least in a conventional sense.

Does anyone remember this man and his shop?

What other uses has been made of that tiny space over the years?