Who even has cause to utter the word “watchmaker” anymore? I, for one, haven’t worn a watch in many, many years. Nor do most of the people I know. But a lovely gold pocket watch came down to me from my great-grandmother. Its only flaw was that it didn’t run. So I asked around and was told that there was a watchmaker in Bangor, Maine, only a few miles from my home. The shop was everything I had hoped it would be: small, intimate, with oak cabinets, specialized hand tools, and lovely old timepieces lying in state in a glass display case. The pièce de résistance was the workbench, easily a hundred years old. This bench, flanked by myriad small drawers, was specifically designed to place the work surface at eye level. The pullout, cloth-covered shelf was a clever touch to catch any tiny part that might fall. The watchmaker himself, a white-haired éminence grise, was bent over his work, a jeweler’s loupe in his eye, when I walked in. He greeted me warmly.…