There's a clock in the trunk

About 1988 or so, Howard gave me a Howard Miller mantle clock.  It was beautiful and chimed on the quarter hours. After we moved to the country, it never really worked well. Maybe the move was too much for it. I put it in a safe place in the back of the closet.

This clock has contributed to one of those family sayings. I think I have told you a snippet of this story before, but I'm telling you again. The day we got the clock, Howard and the little girls dropped me off at the hospital to visit with a dear friend and her mother who was recovering from surgery. After they let me out, they went on down to Poplar Avenue to the clock shop to get my Christmas present.

Hayley must have been about 7, making Olivia 4.  It was raining that day. After they came to get me at the hospital and I climbed in the car, dried myself off and put up my umbrella. Off we went. I didn't know where they had been while I was with my friend.

We stopped at the first red light. I heard Olivia say from the back seat, with all seriousness, "There is a clock in the trunk."  I didn't say a word. Howard smiled.

So anytime we are keeping a Christmas or birthday secret, we say, "There is a clock in the trunk."

Last week when I found it under the closed underneath the stairs, I got it out and looked it over. Still beautiful, but the hands were bent and were missing the little screw that held them in place. After I put it on the mantle it chimed!  It didn't know what time it was, but it chimed.

I called my friend Katie Powers of Katie's Antiques in Independence and asked if her husband could take a look at it.  He did. And today I brought it home and placed it in its rightful place, and it is chiming up a storm.

I was afraid my nervous little Silky Terrier might bark at its lovely sound, but so far so good.
So glad I found my clock in the closet.