KEYS

I received a surprise in the mail -- well via UPS -- today. It was a skate key -- a well-rusted, very old skate key -- from my sister. Thanks, sis.

Nostalgia is something I'm enjoying more and more. And I am so looking forward to a few more days with my sister in the middle of May so we can nostalgize (that's a new word I made up). We're heading down to Tennessee for a couple of days.

Regarding KEYS. My dad had keys -- not as many keys as pens, but he had a few. They were clock keys. Heather reminded me about the clocks. She said that she remembered that he had several in his bedroom and it sounded like a clock shop - tick tock, tick tock. She's correct. But they were of the wind-up variety. He'd see a new bedside clock -- you know those kind you wind up and set the alarm on to wake you up -- and buy it for his bedroom. Never mind that he never set the alarms. But the ticking and tocking? I guess for him it was like a lullaby or something that lulled him to sleep each night.

He also had several other clocks around the house. I remember when his step-mother died and he inherited a couple of clocks. He seemed to be so excited about the clocks. Since I didn't know anything about death, his lack of remorse over his step-mom's death (they had a good relationship) didn't bother me. I was as excited as he was over these new clocks.

One struck on the quarter-hour and played 1/4 of a song -- ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong. Can't you just hear it? No, oh, well, you had to be there, and I was. And he got another clock, which now resides on my son's mantle -- it was an old mantle clock. We had no mantle, so he put it on the buffet in the dining room. That clock too, struck on the 1/4 hour, but it was just a bong.

He had one in his office at the church. That one lapsed into a quiet decoration quite often, but he'd chuckle and drag me over to his office to watch him get that clock running again.

I remember one time he took the clock down from the shelf and turned it around so I could see the insides. It had a pendulum and springs and coils and sprockets and he told me how the sprockets moved in a certain way and they were made to precisely keep time. Then, he wound up the clock, gave the pendulum a push, and it started ticking. That clock only struck on the hour.

You know what? I recall the various clocks going off in the middle of the night, but it wasn't something that was jarring. It was relaxing, comforting.

Something else about the KEYS and the clocks. Dad was very precise about time. He checked on the phone with the Naval Observatory from time to time to get Naval Observatory Time. And then, he would make sure every clock was set to that time, including his wrist watch and his pocket watch and my mother's wrist watch!

He didn't like battery operated clocks and he laughed at the annoying sound the electronic clocks made. He never had a grandfather's clock, but if he did......