The ‘Soothing’ Tick of the Clocks

James L. Davis

Tick…tock…tick…tock….

In our home time is much more than the simple tick and tock of a harmless little clock. It is infinitely more than the baleful stare of a digital time piece, silently switching from one glowing number to another as the minutes pass.

In our household time is a great jackhammer of noise that will find your rawest nerve and beat upon it ruthlessly until all sense of sanity has left screaming for relief. And that’s just the way my wife and I like it. It brings us peace.

Tick…tock…tick….

My wife is a clock fanatic and her fanaticism has converted me to the Cult of the Clock. Of course, the reason why I have joined the Cult of the Clock is far different than why my wife initiated the Cult of the Clock. But, I’m a card carrying member, so my wife doesn’t care why I belong, only that I belong.

In our living room there are, as of last count, 32 clocks. Not just any clocks, mind you, most of these clocks are parlor clocks that chime every hour and tick and tock with great echoing ticks and reverberate with great bellowing tocks. They are joined by two cuckoo clocks that, well, cuckoo away the hours. Some of the clocks are antiques, and all but two of them tell the time quite nicely, unfortunately it is the wrong time. Every week or two my wife will spend the better part of an afternoon going through the room winding all of her clocks. She will make minute adjustments to the pendulums to set all of the clocks to the same time and then she will start them all up again and then for a day or two, midnight and noon are fairly loud events as each clock chimes the hour at the same time. After a couple of days, however, the clocks all start to speed up or slow down and by the end of a week, midnight and noon can encompass more than 10 minutes of 30 some odd clocks chiming the hour. Just as one clock gets through chiming the hour, another clock will kick in and by the time all of the clocks are finished alerting you to the fact that a new hour has begun the new hour is already well on its way to being over.

Two of the clocks in the room tell the correct time twice a day at least and those are the two clocks that no longer work. The most recent edition to my wife’s clock collection is a grandfather clock I gave her for Christmas, and if all of the clocks had a leader, then the grandfather clock would be it. It chimes the hour, the half hour and the quarter hour with great authority and dedication, sometimes even when it actually is the start of a new hour, half hour and quarter hour.

Since my wife and I are both members of the Cult of the Clock, we will sit in the living room and listen to all of the clocks with an odd, slightly frightening smile pursing our lips as the clocks tick away the minutes of our lives. My wife smiles blissfully because she is a true lover of clocks and loves to tinker with them, repair them and listen to them. Her grandfather was a clockmaker and repairman and she wants to follow in his footsteps…when she grows up. I listen with a blissful smile upon my face for an entirely different reason. I listen with sweet serenity on my face because the clocks frighten away our children.

Tick…tock….

While we enjoy the chiming of the clocks, they are jackhammers of destruction upon the poor, innocent ears of our children, ears that can withstand the shriek of earphones embedded deep within their eardrums playing screeching songs at full volume by singers that have taken voice lessons from Satan.

Our oldest son, when visiting one weekend, decided that he would sleep in the living room instead of the guest room. When we awakened the next morning, we were somewhat concerned to discover that his left eye was squinting and his right eye was wide open and bloodshot. It also appeared to be twitching. We asked him what was wrong and he muttered through gritted teeth. “The clocks…all of the clocks.” We later discovered that he had duct taped the door to one of our cuckoo clock’s shut to keep the cuckoo from cuckooing.

Our children that still share our home with us feel much the same way about our clocks, which is why I love them so. Sometimes our children will plead with us with great sincerity and pained expressions upon their angelic faces for us to please consider stopping the ticking of the clocks so they can sit in the living room with us.

If our children were to sit for long lengths of time in our living room with us it would soon no longer be our living room, it would be their living room. For this reason we look back at them with great sincerity and with pained expressions on our angelic faces and say “no.”

When our children stomp downstairs with disgust we hold hands and continue to smile blissfully as the clocks tick away the time -- the wrong time, of course, but the time nonetheless.

Tick….

Can Someone ‘Make’ You Angry?

Josie Luke

Recently, as I have covered news for the Review, I have had the opportunity to contemplate something my uncle tried to teach my history class when I was in Jr. High. Seemingly out of the blue, he provoked a heated debate between the students and himself by suggesting that it was not possible for another person to make us mad. To me, this was a revelation. Of course, it only became one after a lot of argument from me that was refuted by someone who knew more than I did.

Over the years, and with more experience, this idea has broadened to include the belief that in most instances, people’s actions aren’t even intended to make others angry. In covering stories, I have seen many occurrences where if this had been considered, things would have gone much more smoothly.

An example of this occurred about a month ago when I was sent to cover a meeting at the College of Eastern Utah which was organized in response to news of a proposal to merge CEU with Utah State University by Senator Mike Dmitrich. I have attended both colleges, and so this meeting was interesting to me in more than one respect.

CEU President Ryan Thomas, who I know personally as a brilliant man, began the meeting relating that he knew that the Senator had the college’s best interests in mind. Yet during the meeting, the tone was decidedly against Dmitrich, even bordering on antagonistic. I admit, the tone drew me in for a time, but after a while, I realized that no one was asking him what he saw as the benefits to the proposal, and I became disgusted with the lack of respect shown the senator.

The next day, I called Dmitrich to ask him that question and in doing so, I gained a lot of respect for him. He related that he hadn’t been treated in such a way since he had been an referee earlier in his life. I had umpired softball a few times while I was in high school, and anyone who has done the same can relate to how he felt. We have since learned that Dmitrich is going to retire, and I admit this is purely conjecture, but possibly the Senator knew the proposal may be the last thing he could do for CEU as a Legislator and was trying to do one final thing to assist the college which he had done so much for, not just to make people mad.

The Huntington stop sign debate is another example. I attended a city council meeting where this was discussed and was disappointed with the tone of the comments from those who were against the stop signs. In speaking with Mayor Hilary Gordon, I learned that one of the reasons the city put up so many stop signs was in response to a child being killed on a street in Huntington.

If people would have understood that this was the city’s intention, the tone of the meetings would have been entirely different, but what I saw was a group of people who reacted as if the city had done it just to make them mad. Now, I have to admit that I can understand why the city would want to slow people down in Huntington. I spent my childhood and teenage years living near one of the corners where stop signs were installed. I was often frightened by the speed of the cars coming by my house, especially when I was attempting to cross the street to walk up to the Jr. High on cold snowy mornings.

To me, it is ridiculous that people don’t stop at a stop sign or slow down when they are on a road where children play. Yes, play. I learned how to catch a “grounder” on the road in front of my house, and I would submit that many people did, while all the time appreciating that they lived in a place where they could.
The Ferron City Council meeting where the proposal was made for a business license for a residential treatment facility was another instance where this idea would have been beneficial. I didn’t really know Charlotte Williams when I went to the meeting, but by the time it was over, I felt bad for her. I also felt bad for those girls who would have benefitted from such a facility.

My college background is actually in psychology, and some of the ways that those in the meeting reacted to the possibility of “troubled youth” coming into their community discouraged me. Many of the girls who would have benefitted from such a facility are girls with psychological disorders which had presented in such a way as to put them in the situation where they needed the type of assistance they could have been given at the proposed facility.

Unfortunately, at this point, society at large does not understand what I was taught in many psychology classes, but with the distorted understanding that many people have of those with such disorders, and also not fully understanding William’s proposals for the facility, citizens panicked. Many of the girls who might have been treated at the facility wouldn’t have been there just to make citizens mad.

I recently had to use this idea myself, when twice the competing newspaper in Emery County has put ads in their paper that are, at the very least, inaccurate. For a few moments, both times the ads have appeared, I have allowed myself to regress to the time before my uncle’s point was made, plotting on how best to exact revenge. Luckily, I have taken a moment and thought about what their intentions were, and as hard as it is to write it, I have realized that they are just trying to get their ad sales up and not just trying to make me mad.

I would encourage everyone, especially those in local government and those who address local government to consider the intentions of those they are working with, so that in the future, such instances might have a more positive result.