The Clock Man

The antique "eight-day" clock pictured above was given to me by a very dear friend a few decades ago after I helped him negotiate a business transaction. When I picked it up, I brought it home, plunked it on a table, and set the pendulum to swinging. My kids thought the hour chime was loud and annoying, so I stopped it and just let it sit as a conversation piece (though I can't recall anyone ever remarking on it).

When I moved to Mt. Baldy, I started it up again, but it never quite kept good time, and it seemed to have some other issues as well, so finally, after I became a flatlander again, I had it looked at by a man my neighbor recommended. He was a nice guy, but admitted up front he was just learning the clock repair trade. He took it home, did a bunch of repair and replacement on it, charged me a hundred bucks, and set it to ticking again. When he did, he pointed out that the flag painted on the bottom glass pane had 32 stars. "I was trying to determine how old the clock is," he told me. "If the flag is any indication, this clock was made in the mid-1800's." Oh. Wow....

A month or so later, it stopped working again, which I believe was my fault. While winding it one day, Purrl distracted me, and I wound it too tight. (Wait--then I guess we can blame it on Purrl, can't we? I should have thought of that. It's always the cat's fault.) Anyway, from time to time I would start it ticking. It would go for a few hours or a day, then stop. When I moved here to Calimesa, I found a safe place for it, then just basically forgot about it until I saw someone ask on social media for the name of a local clock repair person. The same name appeared repeatedly, so I wrote down the name and number and finally got around to calling.

"Dan" came out on Sunday. There is something fascinating about watching someone who is really good at what they do. They kind of enter a zone and become fixated. This is what Dan did immediately upon seeing my clock. He also noted (since I had set the pendulum to swinging hours before he arrived and it was still going) that the "tock" was "off." At that point, he hadn't even touched it, just sat on the floor listening to it. "Well, I can tell you right off the bat, it's not ticking correctly," he said. "Hear it?"

Um... no.

But when he reached inside and quickly adjusted some thingamajig in the workings, I did hear the difference right away; it sounded more like a classic ticktock. He checked a few more parts and pieces, and as he did I asked him how he'd gotten started repairing clocks. Turns out that while he was in the Air Force, he was stationed in Germany, where he learned to appreciate the intricacy and beauty of fine clocks and watches. He brought several home with him and decided he should get some tools and learn how to repair them himself. He found someone who happened to be retiring from the trade and agreed to sell him some tools and teach him a few things, and he has continued to learn along the way. When he began repairing clocks in 1993, there were eleven such clock repairmen in a thirty-mile radius of where he lives in Redlands. Now there are three.

"No one wants to do it," he told me. "Younger people aren't interested in old clocks. I have three antique grandfather clocks that were given to me by people who were going to throw them away because they just didn't want them in their houses anymore."

Seriously?

I love my clock. There is something comforting about the constant sound of the old school ticktock. When you consider that this clock works entirely on a few brilliantly designed gears, two weights, and a pendulum, that's pretty impressive. And when I further consider that this instrument has been ticking away (minus a couple of years on hiatus) for 160 years or so, that's just downright amazing.

Dan was here for less than an hour. "It seems fine now," he said, as he made his way to the door, giving me directions along the way on how to correct the pendulum if it runs too fast or too slow over time. He also instructed me on how to velcro it to a wall in the event we have a big earthquake. And then he tried to get away without letting me pay him. "I didn't really do anything," he protested. In the end, because I kept shoving money at him, he did take a few bucks for the gas required to drive the 15 miles from Redlands. He left his card and told me to call right away if the clock stops again. But it's been ticktocking away for 72 hours now, bonging its bong on the hour without fail. And this song has been running through my head for days: "My Grandfather's Clock." (This version on YouTube is a charming one by Doc Watson, though there are many. I've known it nearly all my life as we learned it as a folk song in elementary school.)