Schoolhouse Clock

May 23, 2015

Behind me hangs on the wall an ancient schoolhouse clock steadily ticking its way through the day. A few hours ago I gave it its weekly wind, and it’ll run contentedly till this time next week. There’s no chime, just a steady tick-tock; after all, it is a schoolhouse clock. For years it hung in my father-in-law’s little study above his desk. In the more than forty years I observed it hanging there, never once did I see it running. He had rescued it years ago from the old abandoned one-room schoolhouse he attended as a boy, and somehow never bothered to get it running. Shortly before he died, he gave it to me and I promptly took it to the repair shop. It’s been running almost non-stop since then.

Granddaughter Abi wouldn’t agree, but I think there’s something viscerally soothing about the ticking of an old wind-up clock. Like an old car, it requires the kind of attention we aren’t accustomed to give anymore. Today’s cars—you fill the tank, change the oil occasionally, but other than that, they’re pretty maintenance free. Old school mechanics needed someone to adjust the carburetor and points, take up slack in the clutch, adjust the brakes, and attend to a dozen other regularly scheduled maintenance routines. Similarly, today’s clocks, if you have one, runs on a battery that needs to be changed once a year. I’ve noticed too, that except for factories, offices, and schools, wall clocks have pretty much gone the way of the dodo bird. Who needs to look at a clock when they can pull out their phone or look at their smart watch?

In 1876, Henry Clay Work, who wrote the tune “Marching Through Georgia,” penned a ditty entitled, “My Grandfather’s Clock,” which told of a clock that mirrored the life of an old man. “Bought on the morn that the old man was born,” it seemed to keep time with the joys and sorrows of the 90 years of his life till “it stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died.” The electric clocks and watches don’t tick or tock. Without gears and cogs, the steady ticking of the seconds and minutes is lost in a ceaseless hum that hasn’t the ability to audibly mark the passage of time. The schoolhouse clock behind me is counting out the beating of my heart, reminding me of my mortality, and of the necessity of regular winding—renewing the wellsprings of my life in prayer and solitude, that the hours and days spent in other places may bear fruit that will last. I like the ticking of old clocks, and am thankful for this particular one steadily keeping time over my shoulder.