Clock store owners get in sync with daylight savings

Clock store owners get in sync with daylight savings

Although millions of Americans turned their clocks ahead this morning, Steve Collins started resetting his clocks Saturday afternoon.

That’s because he had dozens of them to reset.

“It’ll take four or five hours,” said Collins, as he stood among the many clocks at the Roseburg-based store, “I Love Clocks.”

Collins and his wife, Camille, own the Garden Valley Shopping Center store. Their springer spaniel, Woody, also is a fixture at the store.

High school sweethearts from their days at Roseburg High, Steve and Camille took over the store six years ago.

But although working in a clock store on the day before clocks spring ahead may seem an arduous task, preparing for the change is not quite as time-consuming, nor as simple, as you might think, Steve said.

As he spoke, chimes, songs and cuckoos rang out intermittently from the hundreds of clocks that lined the walls, shelves and floors of the store.

Chimes resonated from about a half-dozen grandfather clocks. Miniature lederhosen-clad villagers twirled on the front of cuckoo clocks. And wall and mantel clocks emitted melodies that ranged from “I Did it My Way” to “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”

Now and again, a small sheep shot out and bleated from a novelty wall clock.

Not all the clocks are set to the real time, Steve explained, “so chaos doesn’t happen all at once.”

Some of the clocks are set a bit before the real time and a bit after the real time. “Over a 10-minute period, at the top of the hour, there’s always something going on,” he said.

Other clocks are set to random times. That way clocks sound throughout the day, intermittently piquing customers’ interest.

One wall is lined with large clocks called “music and motion” clocks. They play songs that range from pop to classical to country. As the music plays, the clock face spreads open like a blossoming flower, revealing intricate moving parts behind the face that whirl as the music plays.

Those intentionally aren’t all set to the same time, Camille said, or “it would be like playing 10 different record players at once.”

And although the majority of the store’s clocks are running, some sit battery-less and silent. Others, like three-foot-across wall clocks, are made mute.

Later that afternoon, Collins planned to start moving the hands forward on dozens of the clocks, at least on all those set at or close to the real time.

On those that chime or sing, he’ll have to pause and “let it do what it’s designed to do” before he moves the hands further forward.

A few of the clocks, so-called atomic clocks, will do his job for him. The clocks receive radio signals every two minutes from the official government clock at Fort Collins, Colo., Steve said.

“If you were watching that, the hands would go an hour forward at 2 in the morning,” he said, pointing to an atomic clock Saturday afternoon.

Changing his clocks to keep them in sync with daylight savings or standard time “takes me some extra time,” Steve said. “But it’s only twice a year.”

And sometimes, the inconvenience pays off in the long run.

“I get an increase in clock repair around that time,” he said. “People mess with their clocks and mess them up when they change the time.”

Source: The New Review Today