Some old favorite children’s songs have really ghastly lyrics, not well-suited for children at all.  The same is true of nursery rhymes. 

Think about it. 

Is the story of Mr. Humpty, late of Dumpty, a story that you really want your babies to hear? 

Just the other day, I happened to read the lyrics of a lovely old melody from my childhood.  Somehow, I had in mind that it had happy lyrics.

“My Grandfather’s Clock” does not have happy lyrics.  It tells the tale of a mystical clock that began ticking when grandpa was born, chimed 24 times instead of 12 times the day he brought his bride home, and rang an alarm when he fell ill. It even muffled its tick-tocking as he lay dying. 

Of course, the darned clock quit working the day he died and never worked again.

There is a clue in the lyrics as to why that may be.  It worked hard---in fact, the lyrics tell of it’s wonderful work ethic---and it had but one demand, and that was that it be wound once each week, no doubt by Grandpa.

My advice to the family would have been to try winding it—it probably would have fired up again with just a little push on the pendulum, and, if it wouldn’t, doubtless a good cleaning, oiling and a little repair would have made it work again.

I do recall the grandfather’s clock of my youth, which stood in the vast entryway of the grand home in which my grandparents lived.  It was a magnificent old clock, complete with big brass weights and a swinging pendulum. 

Even after the first time my cousin, Mr. Bill, hid inside it during a game of hide-and-seek and damaged it, it was repaired to first-rate condition.  On all subsequent occasions when Mr. Bill hid inside the clock and broke it again, it was also repaired, proving that these things can be fixed. 

Since the clock was owned by Albion College, of which my grandfather was president at the time, and since I have long been employed by the same institution, I am privileged to be able to see that same clock from time to time to this day.  It keeps on ticking.  I must look inside the case and see if there are scuff marks on the floor from Mr. Bill’s feet.

Now, the grandMOTHER’s clock of my youth is a different matter.  It never had anything to do with my grandmothers.  My parents bought it as part of the combination house-and-doctor’s office we moved into the year I was born and my dad was just starting out as a young doctor in the Deep South, in Morenci, Michigan.

It stood in our living room throughout my youth and faithfully kept time.  At some point, my mother gave it to me, probably when she and my dad moved to the farm “up north”, two miles from the old house.

We’ve had the clock repaired a few times, but it has worked perfectly all these years.  It must be seventy or eighty years old.  It fits the décor of our house perfectly.

It has taken a few licks.  Just the other night, our cat, Riley Wiley Porter was being pursued through the house at a high rate of speed by our son’s cat, Bugsy.  Apparently, Riley forgot that he is exceptionally portly of stature and tried to launch himself from the back of the couch to the top of the clock, which crashed to the floor on its face.

Now the door to the face of the clock is in intensive care getting a new pane of glass, but other than that, the clock is none the worse for wear.  Even if it were, I’d just get it fixed.

Unlike Henry Clay Work’s 131-year-old song suggests, clocks can be fixed.  That was the trouble with those old timers.  Something wore out and they just tossed it.  Didn’t they ever hear about recycling?

                                         by Jim Whitehouse

                                                    Index