Kristy Smith: Why the ringing, tolling and chiming bells?
There are a few memories from my childhood that vibrantly stand out. One of them is the chiming wall clock that hung in the living room of my best friend’s house. I was so envious of that clock, which chimed every 15 minutes.
However, when it sounded on the hour, you would hear four full lines of a highly dignified chimes song, followed by a single chime sounding the number of times for the hour represented. The whole thing seemed impressive to me, and I’d briefly consider standing at attention and saluting the clock as it sounded bigger than life.
I coveted that clock, but probably would have settled for one similar to it. But why? Good question. For one, it stood out as very European and sophisticated for a clock hanging out in our country, where a neighbor had a Betty Boop clock and another friend a wall timepiece that had been fashioned out of a frying pan with silver plastic numbers marking the hours. For another thing, its around-the-clock chiming kept a person ever-alert to the passage of time, which otherwise tends to be overlooked.
Maybe the real question is why was (and is) around-the-clock awareness of time so all-fired important to me? I used to love watching the opening of my grandmother’s favorite soap opera, “Days of Our Lives” – with MacDonald Carey intoning, “Like Sands through the hourglass – so are the days of our lives.”
That dramatic phrase and hourglass visual had a major effect upon me. Hourglass sands, like the clock chimes, ingrained that our day days here on Earth are finite and we need to make them count – especially when there are people I knew and loved who appeared to have been shorted the same opportunity. The death of a cousin in Vietnam at age 19 and later my dad at 57 left indelible impressions on me.
Whenever I stayed at my best friend’s house, the sound of the clock chimes had an energizing effect, reminding me to make something of myself and to leave the world a better place than I’d found it. Doing something spectacular, or everything at once wasn’t required, but doing something at once was imperative. For whom did those bells ring or toll? Not for me and my gal, but more specifically for me!
About the time I was youthfully considering how I might best contribute to the world, I was assigned a piece by my piano teacher that bore the word “chimes” in the title and involved a variation on the familiar chimes melody I’d long heard at my friend’s house.
I vaguely recollect there were lyrics under the notes because I somehow got it into my head the chimes were asking, “What do they say? The time of day. What do they say? The time of day”, followed by a number of chimes. From then on, whenever I heard that chimes played in real life, on television, online or at the movies, I would mentally interject those simplistic lyrics.
You can imagine my surprise 50 years later when I was up in the middle of the night, channel surfing, and happened upon a documentary that labeled the familiar chiming clock melody as the “Westminster Chimes.” Well, duh! As a musician, it’s amazing I hadn’t before connected that name to the chimes. But obviously, a person can remain ignorant for a half-century or better.
To further my surprise, a man interviewed for the documentary (whose name escapes) recited a prayer he purported was the lyrics to the chimes: “Lord through this hour, be Thou our guide. So by Thy power, no foot shall slide.”
Interesting and validating. Back as a kid, I had intuitively sensed there was more to the chimes than simply providing the time. They reminded listeners of the firm foundation and guidance available from God by request. But you first had to give Him the time of day.
To this day, I go to sleep each night wearing a lighted watch, with a lighted, battery-operated alarm clock on my nightstand and a wall clock that’s illuminated by a small lamp. Five decades later, their reminder remains the same: be useful, not ignorant, during your waking hours.
— Kristy Smith’s Different Drum humor columns are archived at her blog: diffdrum.wordpress.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Kristy Smith: Why the ringing, tolling and chiming bells?
