Disaster Planning, November 2006

Question:  “What possession would you save in the event of a disaster?”

In the late 1990s I remember a resurgence of people wanting to get to know each other better.  Either through parlor games or questions like this one, the art of conversation made a brief comeback.  Now we are cynical, terrified, politically polarized hand-wringers, with satellite cable, high definition television and nothing to say to each other.  Still I would like to answer the question.

I first met JoAnne at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1970.  We seemed to hit it off immediately.   I liked that expensive outings did not seem to be a priority with her, and that a long walk from her dorm to the arboretum seemed to constitute a Saturday night date.  It was on one of these forays early in our relationship that we found ourselves looking at a charred campus building.  I do not remember the name of the fraternity, but there clearly had been a fire and now there was a large dumpster filled with the contents of the house.  Many items were smoke-damaged or broken, but on the top of the heap was a mantle clock, made of wood, that appeared to have survived the fire and been purged in the clean-up.

We spoke in general terms about what would possess someone to throw away an attractive and apparently intact clock.  The discussion was completely hypothetical because a person on their fifth or sixth date was not going to dirty themselves and go fishing in the giant receptacle.  It is a matter of conjecture and family folklore how the subject was finally broached and I ended up in the dumpster.  I was not only forgiven but seen as resourceful when the clock, after cleaning, proved to be in working order.

We have kept our Revere Telechron Westminster Chime clock for thirty-six years.  It was made in the U.S.A.  On the bottom is a plaque that reads “Class of 55”.  It has moved from Michigan to Florida to Minnesota to California.  It has been on prominent display everywhere we have lived, and has always worked perfectly.

I thought having a camera in a much-loved clock would be an interesting premise for a film.  I remember looking at the clock before I went off to my first real job. A clock captures anticipation: waiting for a phone call, a favorite show, or a child to come home.  Every time we view the unblinking clock we are older. 

That is everything I know about our clock on the mantle. When the Big One hits (and of course out here it is all about earthquakes), if JoAnne and the pets are safe, I’m going for the clock.

Tom H. Cook is a wayward local writer who is missing out on the improvements to Lake of the Isles, the new Guthrie, Block E, the decline of Calhoun Square, the Twins post pennant fever, and the current heat wave.  He is reasonably content watching the Pacific Ocean and counting the days until we have a new president..