A History of Clocks

My clock died a few days ago.

It was an old Westclox with a digital read-out, two alarms and an AM/FM radio. A relatively unattractive clock, it was made of metal, painted gray, and sat on the nightstand by the side of my bed. 

I never could figure out how to set the alarm, so it sometimes made its own decisions about when it was time for me to get up. The radio never worked well, and I could only get religious stations that were so powerful that you could almost hear them without a radio. The digital display had only two dimmer settings, one really-dim and one really-bright. I never used the bright setting since it lit up most of the room and probably would have fried my brain with its cosmic rays.

Over the years the display dimmed from its original setting. In the last year I blamed my inability to read it on my aging eyes. Sometimes, I could only see one digit, then maybe two, and on occasion more. Periodic flickering was also a feature that Westclox did not plan for. Never relying on its alarm function, the clock only served to remind me of the incessant passage of time and my inability to sleep beyond 3am.

At the same time, my motion activated night light stopped working, and I was forced to grope my way to the bathroom without the benefit of its guidance. I wondered if the two devices had conspired against me.

I bet the clock was at least 30 years old and was in our Northridge home before we brought it to Ojai in 2000. It probably would have spent another 30 years next to my bed if I hadn’t picked up a few days ago to see if I could brighten up the display.

The clock depends on house current, so I was surprised when I turned it over to find one of those little doors that tiny AAA batteries hide behind. It also sported a crusty residue that announced, Your batteries are dead bozo, you left them in too long while they morphed into useless blobs, so they spilled their rotten guts all over the clock, and you might as well toss it in the garbage.

So I did.

I stared at the abandoned Westclox at the bottom of the green E.J. Harrison and Sons trash bin and thought about what that clock must have seen in the years spent next to my bed. Things that were private. Happy things, and things that are best forgotten. Sleeping while the clock worked, passing the time.

Its image took me back to other clocks, like the big round one high on the wall of Mrs. Beck’s elementary school Latin class. Latin? Why would a 13-year-old take Latin? I have no idea. So I invariably just watched the school clock move forward, waiting for the painful class to end. Amo, amas, amat.

It was one of those clocks whose big minute-hand moved in stages. Not a smooth progression, but one that took two distinct steps to move ahead one minute. Ka-chink it went, with an accompanying loud click. Then it hesitated a moment like it wasn’t sure it wanted to complete the stroke. Then, finally, the second Ka-chink and the beginning of the next minute. 

A good part of my elementary school life was spent sneaking looks at the clock on Mrs. Beck’s wall, waiting for that second Ka-chink. And it didn’t end in elementary school. There were other clocks in high school that also plagued me with similar Ka-chinks. In retrospect, I would have paid good money for a digital clock without Ka-chinks.

Some clocks plagued me without even seeing them. My Uncle Max’s, for example. My parents teamed up with Max to buy a two-flat on Chicago’s north side. Not the expensive north side, the one where the working stiffs lived. Uncle Max lived on the second floor while we were on the first. His bed was positioned right over my head.

Uncle Max worked at a junk shop (today it would be called a surplus materials recycler). He got up five days a week at 4:30. His wind-up clock kept reasonably accurate time and went off religiously at 4:30. That’s all it did, no radio, no dimmer, no USB port, no batteries, no nothing. Uncle Max wound it at night; at 4:30 it erupted, and he’d let the alarm run down to the bitter end.

The ringer sounded like it belonged on a cheap clock, which it was. Like most wind-ups, it would ring very fast at the beginning of the cycle, and then run progressively slower as it coasted to a stop. I’d lay there, roused by the ringer, and wait for it to end. Ring…ring…..ring.…..ring.…… I thought it would never stop. 

I liked Uncle Max, so I never mentioned the ringer and, like the clock on Mrs. Beck’s wall, it brings back the faces and sounds of people I loved.

Now I have a new clock. It arrived like so many other things in an Amazon Prime truck. It only cost $12, is made of black plastic, has a USB port, and plugs into the wall. It has ten different dimmer settings. It also has a little door under which I installed two AAA batteries. It tells perfect time, and I don’t need to squint at it. But it has no memories.

It may last 30 years, but I won’t. Someone else will have the job of keeping time…and tending to the batteries.

Mumble, mumble

I braced for impact.

Norm and I were driving the 150, on our way to the Dylan concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl. It was just after 5 and the sun played peekaboo as 71-year-old Norm steered his five-year-old Lexus around the curves of the two-lane highway that I mostly avoided. It was otherwise idyllic but for the speeding on-coming traffic carrying impatient people home at the end of a long day.

We rounded a curve. The oncoming leather clad biker, head down, went out of his lane and passed the car in front of him like it was standing still. I thought, He’s never going to make it back to his lane. We’re gonna hit him.

A month ago, Norm called me. “You a Dylan fan? He’ll be at the Santa Barbara Bowl on June 22.”

He had invited Jackie earlier in the day, probably because she’s a lot prettier than me. Her work schedule stopped her from taking Norm up on his offer, but she told him that I might like to go.

I thought for a few seconds, about Dylan, about Mister Tambourine Man, and Blowin’ in the Wind. And then I remembered Don’t Think Twice-It’s All Right.  Sure, “I’ll go if you drive. My eyesight is for shit when the sun goes down.”

The tickets were $130 each. A reasonable price I thought to see a legend. I didn’t even ask where the seats were. In the Bowl, I hoped.

I had only seen Dylan once, twenty-five years ago at the Hollywood Bowl, on stage with Paul Simon. We sat about half-way up the Bowl and got a pretty good view of what was happening. Paul Simon was classical, with his easy music, and lyrics that made sense the first time you heard them. I heard everything clearly.

I don’t remember what Dylan sang back then. I heard the music, but I didn’t understand anything he said. He might as well have been singing in Hungarian. He mumbled. He held his guitar and stomped around the stage, in that ragdoll fashion that made him clearly recognizable even if you were looking at the show from the moon. He was one of those unique people who could be a star just by showing up.

On that night 25 years ago, Leonard Nimoy, the big eared Mister Spock of Star Trek fame, was sitting near us. At intermission I wandered over to him. “Excuse me, Mister Nimoy, my son Steven is a big fan of yours. I wonder if you could give him your autograph. He’ll go crazy.”

Nimoy looked at me like Mr. Spock would and said nothing. I’m sure he thought I wanted it for me. He held out his hand and I gave him the program. He signed. Steven kept it for years. When Steven died, it too disappeared.

We survived our Highway 150 encounter with the delinquent biker and got to Santa Barbara two hours before showtime. Parking was a couple of blocks away at the high school. I hoped that Norm would remember the car’s location since it escaped my brain as soon as I closed my door.

I’d never been to the bowl in Santa Barbara, so everything was new to me. It’s nestled in the hills along with homes worth millions.

I looked at the people waiting in line at the entrance. I was no longer the oldest person at the party. Gray hair, no hair, and walking sticks were the costumes of choice. And why not? Dylan was 81. It reminded me of people walking to Lourdes for the cure.

The Bowl holds over 4,500 people, nearly five times the size of the bowl in Ojai. There’s an uphill trek required from the entrance to the base of the bowl. A shuttle is available for those whose trekking days are limited to one that goes from the couch to the refrigerator.

We made it up the hill under our own power and, given the absence of pot, got a couple of glasses of wine to numb our senses. I promptly spilled several dollars’ worth as we climbed the remaining steps to the seating area.

Our seats were seven rows from the stage and an army of frightening loudspeakers were arranged in vertical rows before us. Hearing aids would be unnecessary. The stage was littered with instruments. Norm pointed to the stand-up keyboard, “That’s where Dylan will be. We’re lucky, we’ve got a straight-line view of him.”

We sat and exchanged pleasantries with our neighbors. Two women and a man in their early seventies. Norm is in the music business and has a Wikipedia mind full of musical trivia. Our neighbors next to us exhibited similar knowledge, and soon were talking about concerts from the Dark Ages and beyond. I, with little more than memories of a few Dylan songs, was left in the dirt. I sat back, tried to meditate away their conversation, and waited for Dylan to make an entrance.

It was getting dark, and I wondered how I’d make it down the steps in total darkness at the end of the show, while avoiding 4,000 people who didn’t know that I was vision challenged. I also shuddered to think about needing to pee while the show was in progress; I did not want to become part of the concert by performing cartwheels down the ramp while singing Simple Twist of Fate.

The show began. Dylan came out and made his way to the keyboard. I could only make out the top of his head with his signature flyaway hair, still curly after 25 years. He would leave the keyboard only three times during the concert, each time seeming uncertain of his balance and in need of a mic stand to steady himself. He was doing what 81-year-olds do.

I closed my eyes, thought about 25 years ago, and listened to the first song. I didn’t recognize it; it was from his latest album Rough and Rowdy Days, but it didn’t matter. I just listened. His voice was less sweet and a little scratchier, like a reformed smoker. The song ended and everyone stood up and clapped, yelled, and whistled, including me.

I listened to the second song. Same reaction.

And then I realized that I hadn’t understood anything he said. He was mumbling, just like the last time.

I was quiet during the rest of the two-hour performance. He didn’t sing anything I recognized. No Like a Rolling Stone, no Lay Lady Lay, no Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. I felt betrayed.

The show ended. Norm loved it, and the guy next to me said, “Wasn’t that great?”

I wanted to say no. But I just mumbled.