Family Matters: Gambling, Ben-Hur, and a Mysterious Vacheron Constantin

My father was a true gambler, especially when gambling was against the law in every U.S. state except Nevada. We lived in Connecticut in my childhood, and gambling was the only work my father had ever done. He started in his teens in the 1920s.

During the 1950s and 1960s, from about the time I was born until I finished high school, things were good for my father. He opened gambling dens in the back rooms of bars, restaurants, and even an ice cream parlor in the city of Bridgeport.
 

Yes, my father’s work was illegal, unlike the work of my friends’ fathers, but that never bothered me.

When I reached my teens, my father let me visit one of his establishments. There were heavy curtains on the windows to hide what was going on and block out daylight. I saw men and one woman hunched over a craps table pleading for the redemption only the right roll bestows.

In a different room, poker players sat as silently as monks at prayer. My father told me: “You have to concentrate when you play poker but stay looking relaxed. And you don’t want to talk during a poker game. Your voice might give something away. You might let the other players know what kind of hand you have. You never want to do that.”
 

After only a few minutes, my father ordered me to leave: “You’ve seen enough. Go home.” I disagreed; I wanted to see the room where sports betting happened. Betting on horse racing and, depending on the season, football, basketball, and baseball were a big part of the business. But my father was not someone to be disobeyed.

As might be expected, my father also cared about his appearance. He was what people called a “sharp dresser.” Always in a suit, often with a double-breasted jacket, a tie, and a pocket square.

The suits were well pressed with a crease like a knife on his pants. And cuffs, always cuffs, because he told me: “The cuffs add weight, and that helps your pants to keep the crease.”
 

Eschewing plain grey flannel or navy blue wool, my father preferred suits with subtle patterns and shirts with French cuffs. The cufflinks matched his tie, and his belts matched his polished shoes.

I remember that the door to my parents’ room was open one afternoon, and as I passed, I saw something that was very special. My father followed a dressing ritual: He selected his clothes for the next day and hung them on a silent valet that stood next to his closet. On the valet’s tiny shelf, he placed his cufflinks...and his watch. However, the bedroom was empty.

I knew the watch instantly: My father’s yellow-gold Vacheron Constantin. His everyday watch was a stainless steel Tissot SeaStar. He only wore the Vacheron for weddings, wakes, funerals, friends’ sons’ bar mitzvahs, and evenings out with my mother. You know, special occasions.
 

I approached the silent valet, where my father’s suit jacket still hung. I carefully pushed back the lapels of the jacket, which parted like the curtains on a stage. There on the shelf was THE watch.

I had never been so close to it. I picked it up by the buckle, let the watch dangle, and that is when, for me, the revelations began.

The thickness of the black leather strap surprised me. While the gleam of the case was soft, the gold was hard. At that time, I did not know the name of the curved pieces of gold that attached the case to the strap, but I thought they were beautiful.

The numerals on the dial were also gold. Then I noticed that only the even numbers were there. Instead of odd numbers, there were little dots of gold, and one even number was missing. Where the 6 o’clock marker should be, a small dial showed the seconds. I wanted to touch the dial, feel the numerals, the dots, and the slender hour and minute hands.
 

I wondered: Is gold magnetic? I cradled the watch in my hand and crossed the hall to my bedroom. Fishing a horseshoe-shaped magnet from my desk drawer, I pressed it against the caseback.

Of course, gold is not magnetic. Even to this day, I do not know if my magnet experiment affected the movement, but when I looked at the dial again, the watch was working.
 

My sister beckoned me to dinner from downstairs. I ran back towards my parents’ room, fell, and grunted. I grunted not because I was hurt but out of the moment of unmitigated fear I experienced when I thought I could have possibly damaged the watch. Thankfully, our hallway had thick carpeting.

At this time (the early 1960s), I had repeatedly asked my father to take me to see the biblical epic Ben-Hur. On that Sunday afternoon, as we turned the corner towards the Merritt Theater in Bridgeport, I started to hope.

“Are we going to see Ben-Hur?” I timidly asked. “Yes,” was his reply.

I shouted a loud thank you. My father parked the car. When I reached for the car door handle, he told me to stop. “Pay attention,” he told me. “You’re going to learn a little lesson.”