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Setting aside time for time

John Howell
Posted 10/6/15

I remember winding clocks was a Sunday ritual for my grandfather.

As a boy, I’d follow him from clock to clock, marveling at how they varied. Some were wound with flat keys that looked like …

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This Side Up

Setting aside time for time

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I remember winding clocks was a Sunday ritual for my grandfather.

As a boy, I’d follow him from clock to clock, marveling at how they varied. Some were wound with flat keys that looked like butterflies, or Dumbo with a straight trunk and round big ears that fit between thumb and forefinger. Other keys were more of a crank with a smooth knob that spun around as you rotated the shaft.

My grandfather usually wound those clocks. They were in high places such as the mantle over the living room fireplace or the banjo clock in a corner of the dining room. But I got to wind some of the grandfather clocks that were weight-driven. This was a matter of opening the case and finding the right chain to pull.

“Not too much,” he’d caution, “and don’t do it too fast.”

My grandfather knew clocks. He repaired them as a hobby, which, according to family legend, he took up after he was diagnosed with high blood pressure and was advised to find an activity that would relieve him of stress. I never understood how repairing clocks and watches, which he also did, could be relaxing. His workbench was filled with cups of gears, springs and screws, and his “relaxation” often required bending over the tiniest of mechanisms with a jeweler’s loupe in one eye while he worked with a pair of tweezers. When I found him in such intense concentration, I had the sense to leave him alone. One word and I had the feeling he would explode.

Also, many years later I found myself wondering what might have been the cause of my grandfather’s “stress” to begin with. He was an Episcopal priest, and while I imagine running a parish can be a demanding job, somehow it doesn’t seem to carry the weight of some secular positions. But then, in fairness, fulfilling God’s expectations is no trivial manner. I wasn’t to question.

But the Sunday ritual of winding clocks is something I like.

Of course, with cell phones and electric watches and clocks, there’s no need for spring or weight-powered clocks. Not only do they demand winding, but for the most part they’re frequently inaccurate.

Yet there is something to be said for the old clocks. We have three that continue ticking, and a couple that could use my grandfather’s attention if he were still with us.

Of the three, one was my grandfather’s. Inside the door he wrote that the clock was taken in trade for repairing one like it. The date is Sept. 24, 1909. I’ve had the clock repaired a couple of times since my father handed it down to me more than 40 years ago.

Another is a banjo Seth Thomas that I bought new from Wood Jewelers in East Greenwich in the mid ‘70s. Battery-operated clocks were the rage at the time, and this was the only wind-up on the display wall. I believe they were relieved to get rid of it.

And the third is the newest to our house. It’s a carriage clock with a Westminster chime that belonged to my father. It has three sets of springs to wind and chimes every 15 minutes. You would think with all the ticking, banging and clanging, three clocks are a bit too much. It’s not.

Remarkably, that was also true of my grandparents’ home, where there were probably a dozen clocks. Midnight and noon were noisy times of day if you listened, yet oddly would pass without any notice if you didn’t focus on it.

More disturbing is the absence of their chimes. Each clock has its own personality, and when absent for whatever reason is like an instrument section gone silent in a symphony.

I don’t remember the house ever being silent of clocks as long as my grandfather was around, and it wasn’t until this Sunday that I thought about the value of winding.

The obvious is that without it, the clocks are going to stop. There was an era when that could be more than just a nuisance of having to reset the clock and coordinate the strike with the time, which can be a pain. One wonders what people did to get back on time before the multiple sources of precise time keeping available today.

Surely that was an incentive to wind as frequently as needed. For good reason one of our clocks, given to us by Carol’s aunt, has been virtually quiet since the day it was placed beside the living room chimney. It is weight-driven and runs no more than two days. But if that was the only source of time, then that’s what someone did.

Today the ritual of winding is a self-imposed deadline with little penalty. Our lives are filled with deadlines, whether we set them or not. There’s the need to get to work, pay bills, and meet appointments on time. Then, too, we face a bunch of self-imposed activities, from an exercise routine to watering the houseplants and feeding the birds.

All of these deadlines are forgiving; even the cardinal comes back if we’ve forgotten to replenish the feeder in the dead of winter. But miss a Sunday winding and all the clocks come to a stop by Tuesday … like clockwork.

The Sunday wind sets the stage for the week ahead. Time is running, albeit for eight days at the maximum. There’s a satisfaction to knowing that, and to having that control and designating Sunday as the day to do it. I think my grandfather appreciated that, as well as the doctor who prescribed a hobby and suggested repairing clocks. The good Lord was generous with his time. My grandfather lived into his 90s.

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