Columns

Hearing a small town's heartbeat

By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published March 11, 2007

The quiet of our mostly empty newsroom in Dade City was interrupted by a melodious chime. The great clock at the Historic Pasco County Courthouse was alive. Dong, dong - 4 o'clock.

The sound of the clock, like the whistle of a freight train, chronicles the rhythm of everyday life. It briefly intrudes on the cacophony of car horns, lawnmowers, diesel truck engines. And for a moment, everyone who hears the clock is on the same time. It creates a sense of community.

I was entranced. After dozens of trips to Dade City, this was the first time I had heard the clock chime. It moved me. It bore me elsewhere, a momentary but delicious reverie, to remember places where my comings and goings were punctuated by the chiming of a big clock.

It sent me back to Rock Hill, S.C., where the clock on the administration building at Winthrop University, with its chimes and song, serenaded many summer afternoons.

There was Howard University more than 20 years ago, when as a freshman, I stood on the cold, dark quad listening to the chimes of the clock at Founder's Library punctuate the Washington, D.C., air.

And before that, it all began in the one-room Wesleyan school, where the principal would ring his bell for lunch as soon as he heard the chimes from the Roman Catholic Church less than a mile away. The bell ringing at noon elicited a Pavlovian growling of my stomach as I rushed home for lunch.

For many of those who have lived with hourly sound of the clock from the town square or some church steeple, it will be a faithful reminder of happier times, very different times.

For Carol Lorenzi, who works on the first floor of the Historic Pasco County Courthouse, the chimes take her back to her childhood in Albany, N.Y., where a huge clock sits on city hall across from the state Capitol.

For former Pasco County Commissioner Sylvia Young, who championed restoration of the courthouse building and refurbishing the clock, the sound of the clock serenaded her childhood visits to Dade City from her home in Darby.

"People sit up and pay attention whenever that clock rings," Young said.

Yes, they do.

In the old days, when only the well-off could afford pocket watches, the town center clock was the faithful keeper of time. Church bells swore by the clock for funerals, worship and weddings.

Sadly, most towns are too modern, too transient, to bother with the upkeep of downtown clocks. The tradition has faded. But I'm grateful for old southern towns like Brooksville and Dade City, where big clocks chime on. In both instances, the clocks still chime because people believed that chimes evoke the true spirit of their community, the past, present and the future.

In the case of the Historic Pasco County Courthouse, the clock fell silent from 1996 to 1998 as the building was being renovated. Now its chimes only pause briefly whenever the County Commission convenes in Dade City. That's a good thing. When you're in the courtroom, you can't think of anything else as the clocks marks the hours.

"It strikes me in the heart," said assistant county administrator Dan Johnson, who oversees maintenance and operation of the clock. "It's a wonderful sound."

Yes, it is. I've heard it.

Dong, dong ...

Andrew Skerritt can be reached at 813909-4602 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4602. His e-mail address is askerritt@sptimes.com.

[Last modified March 10, 2007, 20:21:59]