Great-grandfather's Clock

We have a new addition to the mantle. It's my great-grandfather's retirement clock. Great-grampa Lucci worked at the "gas company," as it was always referred to among family, but the clock says "Cities Service." Dad thinks it might be called Citgo today.

I'm not sure when my parents acquired the clock, but it's been sitting on their mantle for as long as I can remember. Apparently my grandparents had it before that so Dad grew up with it. My parents say it used to run when I was little, but I don't remember. All I remember is it got too old and stopped running.

Grandma Lucci was the one who finally decided to have it fixed. Grandma wanted to give it us because my parents now have a chiming clock that Dad received for his 25 years with the company. Unfortunately the clockmaker had to rebuild the whole thing which took quite awhile and it wasn't ready in time for Christmas. But we still got it just a few weeks later than planned. I'm finding that it's taking a little getting used to hearing it tick and chime all the time, but I really like having it. It's special to have a little piece of the Lucci family sitting on the Lucci House mantle.

When asked for a good story about the clock, Dad said, "Well, the worst part about the clock, is when you wake up in the middle of the night (this is before lighted clocks), and the house is really still, you listen for the clock to find out what time it is, except, if it's between 12:30 and 1:30, you can't tell what time it's chiming." You see, it chimes the hour on the hour and only once at the half hour. Therefore, it would chime once at 12:30, once at 1, and once more at 1:30. So you can see how confusing it can get. According to Dad, "This is especially true if you're awake because you're frightened out of your mind because you just saw the original Franenstein movie, and you're convinced he's headed your way."

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