tick-tock

 A recent entry in my page-a-day trivia calendar tells me that there is a clock museum in Vienna, Austria that houses clocks dating back as far as 1699.  Every hour on the hour the museum resounds with the ringing of many clocks displayed on the three floors of the building.  I have visited Vienna but did not see the clock museum (Uhrenmuseum).  However I have had a similar experience on a smaller scale.  On the rare weekends when my college roommate and I were heading home from Ball State, we would get a ride as far as her home in Fort Wayne, then I would call my father and he would make the half hour drive from Woodburn to take me the rest of the way home.  My roommate's parents were both from Germany and had quite a fine collection of cuckoo clocks.  Almost all of them were displayed in the living room, and, since it is hard to exactly coordinate 20 clocks, we would be treated to an amazing cacophony of sound for a minute or so at the top of each hour.  I didn't mind at all because, in addition to being a clock collector, my roommate's mother always had an assortment of home made cookies and other pastries waiting for us and she made sure I ate plenty.  She thought I was too skinny (those were the days).