Old time is still a-flying

When I was a youngster growing up on a farm in Killough Valley in the Ozarks over yonder, time passed so slowly, especially in the weeks before Christmas or a birthday or anything special that changed the routine in a farm boy's life.

Back then I never understood adults who said things like, "Boy, time really flies, doesn't it?"

My answer was swift and sure: No, it doesn't. The last day of school will never get here.

But it always did. Sooner or later Christmas arrived. I got another year older. School let out for the summer.

Nowadays I wistfully wish for a magic spell that would put the brakes on the passage of time.

Look. We're almost one-twelfth of the way through 2004. How did that happen? It seems like the last time I looked at a calendar it was 1989. Where did all those years go?

What those adults said when I was a child is turning out to be gospel: The older you get, the faster the calendar pages turn.

I've come to grips with my inability to slow down the cosmos. I accept that my aches will spread and my double chins will double again. I realize, finally, that when it comes to buying shoes that are stylish or shoes that are comfortable, there is no contest. I understand that the momentary pleasure of eating certain foods no longer offsets the hours of distress to follow.

While I cannot regulate time to a pace that suits me, I have found little tricks to balance the fleeting moments that slip unseen, unheard, unfelt from present to past.

For example, there is the photograph I took of our two sons at Stockton Lake on our first family camping expedition. In the photo, older son is 5, and younger son is not yet 2. They have, with their parents' warnings to be careful, perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water. They are facing the lake, and the photo is taken from behind. Older son has his arm protectively around younger brother's shoulders.

This is our favorite photo of our children when they were young. It is a favorite of their grandmother who has a framed enlargement hanging on her kitchen wall. It was the favorite of their other grandmother who put her copy on the wall over her bed.

Every time I look at that photograph, it is 1975. Time stands still. The fun we had on that camping trip is just as real as the day it happened.

In one of the bookshelves in our family room there is a plastic desk calendar like the ones businesses used to give away to customers. This one, which is a keepsake my wife treasures, features her father's plumbing business in her hometown and is turned to August 1963. I can't say exactly why time stopped in 1963 on this calendar. But every time I see it, I am transported to the last summer I spent at home the year before I asked my future bride to be my wife.

There are two windup clocks in our house. One is more than 60 years old and was brought home from China by my father during World War II. The other is 150 years old and was brought home by me in 1967 from a curio shop in Egham, a Sussex village near London.

The Chinese clock runs when it feels like it. The English clock has tick-tocked 150 years without ceasing -- until last fall. Now it won't tick or tock.

If the clocks are sending me a message, I don't know what it is. All I know is this: Without explanation, the Chinese clock started up Tuesday when I went home for lunch. It is still running. And it's Friday. What happened to Wednesday and Thursday?

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.