When an iconic hometown clock stops...

To follow up on my last post about the demolition of the old building that once housed Niam's Parkette,  I happened to read in a western Pennsylvania newspaper that the century-old town clock in my hometown has stopped. Another reminder that, as my art history professor once conceded of a flaking fresco, "things don't last forever."

Now that might not sound like big news for most folks who can consult their I-clocks, but the clock high up on the United Methodist Church tower along Main Street was the final arbiter in calibrating the precise movement of Mt. Pleasant's residents.  I passed it each day on my way to school and its silent arms told me whether I should walk faster to arrive on time. It was all part of a day's small-town existence.

At night,  eerily lit round faces that looked out in four directions signaled a sort of eternal guardianship over a town in repose.  The stores on Main Street had closed, but life was secure for another night so long as the clock was peering out over its people.

The problem now, according to church officers, is that the 40-year-old motor that had replaced an earlier one is broken and is irreplaceable because nobody makes them anymore.  So plan B will be  an attempt to fix the old one that runs all four faces.   That will be the challenge to the borough because for some reason it and not the church owns the iconic timepiece.

If I were to sit down for coffee with some of my old hometown acquaintances, I can assure you the fate of that clock would quickly enter the conversation.    Mayor Gerald Lucia  told the paper that it is already the talk of the town.

"The clock has been a monument  in Mt. Pleasant for years, and it is a symbol of the fact that from the time of being a child and growing up through the years you always looked to the clock to see the time,"  he said. "Believe me, since it hasn't worked, many people have asked 'When are you going to fix the clock?'"

Somehow it's good to know that there are some local concerns that can temporarily relieve us of  thinking about the zoo on Capitol Hill, where time also seems to have stopped.

I did go home again!

WE SPENT A pleasant weekend refreshed by a reintroduction to old friends and the serenity of the Laurel Highlands in Western Pennsylvania. The occasion was a high school class reunion -Number 60 by hard count! - and despite the tiny size of the original class at Ramsay High School in Mt. Pleasant, there are still enough of us around to guarantee that the event was worth the effort by classmate Al Maida and his team.

Although Nancy has wondered about the accuracy of some of the weird stories I've occasionally recycled from my hometown days, her suspicions were erased as my classmates assured her that the stories were true. There was clear memory of the medicine show that came to town in which I had been hired as a pianist. Vince Balcerek, who hung out with me on the cold vacant sidewalk in front of my uncle's restaurant on Main St. at night because there was nothing else to do, remembered more about my relatives than I did. And Dr. Ed Levin, an amiable straight-A student with no airs about his talents, easily recalled the classmate, a coal miner's son, who had trouble pronouncing Hamlet and MacBeth in Mrs. Haberlin's English class. (It was Hamleth, and MacBett., for heaven's sake.) And all agreed that it was not wise to anger any of our stern high school teachers.

But beyond the camaraderie of a single Saturday evening dinner among friends, the gathering had a sense of balance, good humor and quiet respect that one doesn't often find in a crazy world. Joined by a 60-year bond, I was able to feel temporarily unchallenged by our routine encounters with the ugliness of the daily news.

Mt. Pleasant is the other side of a modern mobile world. There are still a number of classmates who remained in the little town and made a decent life for themselves, some calling it a night after another Steelers football game. (I snuck out from the dinner table for another update of the exhibition game between Pittsburgh and Buffalo that was on the TV above the bar in the next room.) These folks are just as aware of the swirl of happenings beyond their hometown as the rest of us, I'm sure. But on this welcoming night in Nino's restaurant, with dinner plates brimming with roast beef, chicken and pasta, we all preferred to live in the personal encampment of our shared past.

No one tried to exalt the town for anything more than it is: A slowly shrinking population with a stagnation that is worrisome without a remedy. All of the town's nearby coal mines and the five nationality schools have closed. Some of the family restaurants have vanished. The high school has moved to another site. On the upside, a Holiday Inn Express has opened near town. As Al Maida sighed, it's still a town worth everyone's good intentions and feeling. It is what it is. Home.

So yes, I escaped into the past and it was good to see that remaining gang again, talk about things that are now anecdotal keepers and let the rest of an often deranged world slip by unnoticed.

This was our third reunion over the past 10 years. Some of us suggested to Maida that we ought get smart and start holding them every year rather than wait another five years. He thought it would be good idea, too. Besides, everyone should be blessed with a small town to think about from time to time.