MY GRAND-FATHER'S CLOCK

          "Mamma, Grand-pa  spanked me !" , I lamented, expecting consolation.
       Instead :"He told you to stop messing with the clock."

      Lest this sound like an acknowledgement of long-ago child abuse, perhaps a bit of context is in order.  

     My grand-parents had the above clock on the mantel of their dining room.  When I was 4 or 5  years old, the clock and its pendulum fascinated my youthful curiosity.  So, on one of our visits, when I thought the adults were occupied in another room, I relocated a chair to the mantel, opened the clock door and began to accelerate the movement of the pendulum.  That was great fun until the clock's proprietor happened to walk through the room and observed my game.  I complied with his instruction to come down and desist.  When I thought he had returned to the living room, I resumed my fun.  Suddenly, there he was again, reminding me of his earlier admonition.  Then followed some kind of corporeal 'stimulation' to the posterior.  Retrospectively, I doubt that there were many licks with any force.  Likely, the hurt was to my feelings that I, the eldest grand-son, would be so disciplined.  Never again did I "mess with the clock", however.

Grover and Verdona Cooper
Clock owners
Late 1940's

Early in their marriage

    Then in 1951, just after my 13th birthday,  both grand-parents died within a month. The siblings made the sorrowful distribution of their parents' worldly possessions.  I lobbied the adults for the clock, using the rationale that I somehow 'deserved' it because of my earlier 'trauma' (though I did not know that word).  Instead it went to my Aunt Rachel, their youngest child,  ten years older than I.  Intermittently over the 65 years since then, I told Rachel that if she ever chose to dispose of the clock that I wanted to renew my bid.  Though I have frequently admired it, I knew that there were valid reasons it could not be mine.  Until this past Thursday night . . . 

Rachel, The Clock and Me,  April 7, 2016

       My two brothers and wives and I had visited her, gone to dinner and then back to her home for lots of warm conversation.  Rachel is 88 years old and a 'Karakter' and Family Treasure unto herself.  Still she posed a challenge to our decorum with her pre-meal grace: "Lord, Bless these Nephews and Neices and help them to behave."

    Back at her house, midway through the conversation, she suddenly said , "I have something I want to give Ron [me]" and disappeared into her kitchen. She returned with the clock and told us that her children had agreed that I could have it.  Seldom am I at a loss for words but in this moment, I could only manage , "Thank you !"  Gratefully, my sister-in-law, Shirley, had the presence of mind to record the moment.

      Then came an unknown piece of family lore.  She told us that her parents had received the clock from her paternal grand-parents.  She was uncertain as to whether it had been as a wedding gift (they were married in the early 1900's) or upon the occasion of her grand-parents' deaths.  At any rate, it is OLD.  And, it keeps perfect time, striking the half hour and hours.  (I attempted to insert a video of the striking.  Guess that's a tekky challenge for another time.  But then, the original owners didn't have computers and video. )

       I removed the current 'read' from the chest in order to take the above picture. Later, I thought it how appropriate to have left it there. The title: The Time of Our Lives.

    Satchel