Wall Clocks and Wall Decor are our specialty
There is something about a wall
clock that is at once modern and nostalgic. There is
a timeless fascination with timekeeping, and the clocks of the ancients
are still mimicked today in sundials sold at open-air markets along
side the booths of incense peddlers. The sundial can also be found
on the floors of Florentine palaces, still keeping the time for
the royals. They are large. So large in fact that they take up the
length of a thirty-foot gallery.
When I think of large
wall clocks, I think of Big Ben, although I am aware
that this does not qualify as a wall
clock. But is it not England we think of when we think
of grand timepieces? “No, no,” my know-it-all brother
corrects me. “The Swiss. The Swiss are the genius clock makers.”
But then he pauses, doubting himself, “Is it the Swiss or
the Germans?” The question is more for himself than for me.
He looks up and recovers his confidence. “Well, either the
Swiss or the Germans. Definitely not the English.” I think
my brother secretly holds a grudge against the English because of
their quibble over the Euro conversion. Why this is a big deal to
him is a mystery. But that is another story.
A big wall clock, I decide, will make just the gift for my aging
father whose sight is diminishing. I have phoned my brother to go
along with me on a shopping expedition, but he manages to beg off
claiming an earlier than normal day in the morning. I head off to
the clock seller by myself. And when I get there, I am glad to be
alone. It is ghostly and dark and slightly dusty. The shop has the
air of a quiet library except for the ticking. I miss the sound
of ticking clocks. Everything has gone digital now. So modern. Remember
the time when you could hold your wrist watch to your ear and be
mesmerized by the tick-tock, tick-tock… ?
Maybe I am just old.
The clocks are old, and dark and grand. It is a second-hand store.
“No,” I say to the clerk who seems encouraged to find
a customer in the middle of the afternoon. I know I won’t
buy one here. They are not reliable and my father must take his
medication on time. Still, they are lovely. How does the storekeeper
manage to stay in business, I wonder.
I head to the mall. Surely can find a large wall clock there. But
the trip is a waste of time. I phone my brother and whine. He says
that I should get with the times and shop on the Internet. “You
know,” he says to me, “Online you can probably find
a brand new clock that looks like those old fashioned ones.”
I brighten and head home.
For the next five hours I am lost in a virtual world made up of
every kind of clock imaginable to man. I get sidetracked and read
about the time-keeping methods of the Egyptians who even sent time
keeping devices to the after world so that their loved ones would
not be late. Late for what?
Eventually I find just the one, the large wall clock that will
both serve and delight my father. He will hang it on the wall in
the den, which incidentally used to be my bedroom and now serves
as his television room. Last year it was a pocket watch I gave him.
Is there meaning in my clock giving trend? Maybe. But he does need
a large wall clock, and with a click of my mouse and the numbers
on the plastic in my billfold, the purchase is made. It will arrive
by ground courier. It is strange to me that I have spent so much
time searching for something that modernity seems to have streamlined.
With a quick search and the click of a button, I could have been
finished with my shopping in a matter of minutes. But what would
be the fun in that? by Selia Franco Pender
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