A Conversation with the Man Who Still Winds the Town Clock
A weekly ritual that has outlived every reason for it.
The town clock could be automated in an afternoon. He climbs the tower every Sunday anyway, and has for thirty-eight years.
The mechanism could, by his own admission, be replaced with an electric motor for a few hundred dollars, ending his weekly climb up a narrow spiral stair for good.
He has been offered the upgrade twice by the town council and declined both times, not out of stubbornness, he insists, but because the climb itself has become part of what the clock means to him.
Asked what happens when he can no longer make the climb, he admitted he has not decided, and does not want to, for as long as the question can reasonably be put off.
