The Clock Setting Blues

"Well, we did it again."
Sometimes you heard those words in the newsroom when a copy boy dropped off a stack of papers still warm from running through the big presses downstairs. They meant we had started work at 7 a.m. with dozens of sheets of paper with nothing on them but ads and a huge amount of white space. Six hours later we had filled up all the empty space and now there was a complete newspaper. We had done it again.

That's a little like setting all the clocks twice a year. Ahead in the spring, back in the fall, on and on it goes. Why can't we just stay on Daylight Savings Time all year? Think of the man hours it would save.

In Europe back during WWII we were on British Double Summertime. That meant the clocks were two hours ahead or two hours behind, one or the other. I can't recall that it changed from one season to the next but maybe it did. I believe I would have noticed if it had because it would have screwed up things like guard duty. While the fighting was going on the German pilots didn't give a damn what the clocks said, they were always there to drop bombs shortly after darkness settled in. Bed-check Charlie, you could set your watch by him.

Now that I no longer have to worry about Charlie, I have to worry about clocks. It's downright amazing how many of them we have. I normally don't notice except to occasionally glance at one in passing. But on clock setting days they seem to come crawling out of the woodwork. A visitor would think we are the most time-conscious people on the planet, and we aren't. So why all the clocks? I haven't a clue.
A few of these clocks, but not many, are set in the old-fashioned way by just turning a little knob. Most are electronic so it's more complicated. Far more complicated because each must be set in a different manner. After struggling with one for fifteen or twenty minutes you finally get it right and move on the next thinking you have it all figured out and the rest will be easy. Wrong. In six months you have forgotten that each has a completely different way of being set.

The cuckoo clock in the hall is especially troublesome because both the clock and the cuckoo have to be set. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with the bird. He has a mind of his own so at 10 o'clock he may call out nine times, or maybe eleven. Then he will shape up and get it right just long enough to prevent being strangled by the irate man of the house. If that happened it would please the hamster, Mr. Zip-Zip. Whenever cuckoo sings out he stops in his tracks, certain a monster is approaching.

So now as Sunday morning winds down all the clocks have been set and the semi-annual task is complete. Yes, we did it again.

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