All in good time, again

Saturday, March 10, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

Moving our clocks ahead one hour tonight is but a routine chore for most of us, a necessary step to stay in sync.

Only one man in Clark County sees the beginning of daylight-saving time as a cause for celebration.

"For us it's like a holiday that comes twice a year," said Ray Lindstrom, the inestimable Watch Man of "Laughlin, USA," as he calls his adopted hometown.

Lindstrom has operated his 3,000-square-foot Watch Man shop - 20,000 watches, each under $20 - in the Riverside resort since 1993.

With daylight-saving time starting three weeks earlier than usual this year, Lindstrom and his staff have been busy changing the hands, or digital display, of each watch in the store. The task takes four to seven days , he said.

An old-fashioned pitchman whose visage is a familiar presence in casino entertainment guides and on local Laughlin TV, Lindstrom has also garnered his share of national media attention. His shop has been featured on the "CBS Evening News" and twice on NBC's "Today Show."

In 1998, Forbes magazine ran an article on the Watch Man under the headline, "Sultan of Schlock."

Another businessman might have been insulted.

"Not me. I thought it was a great compliment myself," said Lindstrom, who promptly registered the Internet domain name www.sultanofschlock.com.

Forbes seemed skeptical of Lindstrom's claim that he grosses $4 million a year. "If he comes even close to that, it's a heck of a lot of watches, because all his prices are under $20," the magazine article read.

Lindstrom responded by splashing a new testimonial across the top of his advertisements trumpeting: " 'A heck of a lot of watches' - Forbes magazine."

It was an action befitting a man who lists P.T. Barnum as the celebrity he most admires (some others who make the cut: Barry Goldwater, Bob Dylan and automotive engineer Preston Tucker).

Lindstrom, 65, has no use for the theory that watches are going the way of typewriter ribbon in an age when all sorts of devices and gadgets can tell us the time: computer screens, cell phones, MP3 players, personal digital assistants, you name it.

"People who say watches are dinosaurs, they don't get it," Lindstrom, a native of Oak Park, Ill., said. "It's a piece of jewelry. A woman might wear one that's diamond, or sporty. A man might prefer a rugged watch, or one that's jazzy or hip-hop.

"A watch does a lot more than tell you what time it is. A watch tells people something about yourself."