Killing Me Softly

Whew, it has been an entire week since I have posted a real post. I am not sure I remember how to type an actual post, but here is my feeble attempt to do so!

Yesterday Jacob and I attended a baby shower for my cousin and his wife, who are expecting their first bundle of joy in a couple weeks. While I was in the area, I decided to stop in and visit with my grandparents at their home.

As we were sitting and talking, in the newest addition of their home, (living room #4, as I like to call it...stay tuned for a post on that soon!) 3p.m. came along and my grandmother's clock began to play. This was the first time I had ever encountered the clock.

It is a large oval shaped clock, which my grandmother has proudly displayed on the wall in "living room #4." It is made of beautiful dark wood and has lots of ornate gold embellishments decorating the face of the clock. When the top of the hour arrives the clock begins to play instrumental music and the face of the clock opens up to display the working pieces of the clock.

At 3 p.m. yesterday the chosen song was "Killing Me Softly." You know, this song. I nearly died. Laughing that is.

My grandmother is not a woman who is up to date, so to speak, in the modern day music genre. I highly doubt she was even aware what the beautiful instrumental music was, but I immediately began to sing, "Killing Me Softly with His Song...Killing me Softly, with his Song."

Assuming my grandmother would not like such music I asked her if someone gave her this clock as a gift. Much to my surprise, my grandmother has purchased this clock for herself. This led her to tell me the story of the clock.

Apparently last summer my grandparents took a bus tour to Indiana's Amish Country with my great aunt and uncle. While on the tour the group stopped at several small country stores. At one such stop the group entered an older feed store. The entire first floor of the store sold only feed, but there were old rickety steps which led up to a second floor, which held lots of general store type items. However, what caught the eye of my grandmother were the walls of the second floor which were covered in clocks. Beautiful clocks, like my grandmother's.

As the story goes, my grandmother was fascinated by one particular clock as was her brother-in-law. The two stood and stared at the clock as it played beautiful music and opened its face to show the inner workings of the clock. Needless to say, both my grandmother and her brother-in-law purchased the clock.

After my grandmother told me the story (and offered that her brother was so interested in the clocks that his wife ordered him one online for Christmas) I wondered if I was missing something about this clock. I personally am not interested in a clock that played "Killing Me Softly."

Now don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful song, but I do not want to hear it every 7 hours for the rest of my life or the other songs it plays for that matter (the clock plays several other songs including "If" by Bread, "My Way" by Ole Blue Eyes, "Bridge over Trouble Water" by Simon and Garfunkel, plus a few Christmas songs). But on a warm summer day in a feed store in rural Indiana, the beautiful compilation of this 1971 (and again 1996) song may have a different impact on me than it did on this June day in my grandmother's home.

There is something to be said for the acoustics of a feed store.