They decorate (some would say clutter) my tiny home. ‘They’ are four wood works clocks, all nearly 200 years old. Each has its own personality, with which I identify them as they strike. There’s Seth and The Groaner, The Diva and The Pillar and Splat.
Each hour, I listen intently as they strike to make sure they are all still working. Time kept with a wood works clock is hardly precision; if they all strike the same number, and within a five-minute time frame, I consider myself to have done most adequately in regulating the pendulum bobs.
As a child, I had the privilege of exploring my family’s two-floor barn. Converted decades ago from livestock housing to a garage bay, a wood shop for my father, copious upstairs storage bays, and the ‘clock shop’, I spent countless happy hours exploring as much as I could.
My final and longest-lingered destination was the clock shop. My father was a consummate handyman, able and willing to fix anything with anything, excepting toasters and refrigerators. My father had a special fascination for clocks, his ‘shop’ at one time housing many, his favorites displayed on the various mantels in our home.
No, I don’t recall that he ever repaired any of the clocks, but more admired and collected them. One old, wood works clock kept its disassembled state long after my father passed away. It was a tall OG-case shelf clock. I have learned so very much since those early days. That clock’s maker, as the clock, have long since passed into obscurity. No, neither dad nor I were ever able to get it running.
In the barn, the endless motes would float in the light from a western window, filling the air with gold dust. The barn, through its long years, had housed leather and wood, ceramics and fabrics, metals and books, oils and chemicals, appliances and family heirlooms. Time had melded these scents, along with the dust and dirt, into a distinctive odor, as sweet to me as the recollections of my time spent there.
When eight o’clock each morning rolls around, it’s time for me to wind the wood works clocks. As I open the door to each, their own melded scent of dust, and dirt, metal and wood, and time, escapes quickly into the room. I am taken back to my home, the barn, my family each time.
I love the smell of old clocks.
June Pawlikowski Miller