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By: Jim Fitzpatrick |
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Email: jim@nunica.com |
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Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer. |
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Along Brandy Creek By Jim Fitzpatrick
The Coopersville Observer March 5, 2007- - No. 86 |
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Grandma Minnie had a Cuckoo Clock. It hung on the wall near the big old brown stuffed chair in the living room. Grandma lived alone. So did the little blue and white wooden bird that popped out form within the clock works every half hour, twenty four hours a day. The bird in the clock added a bit of life to Grandma's house during the days and the years that she spent alone in the old farm house where she was born. She had a shaggy old white dog, too; that kept her company. Skippy seldom lifted an ear to the familiar sound of the Cuckoo. Grandma didn't wear a watch, she didn't have to; Cuckoo announced the time to her all day long. Come bed time, however; Grandma would quiet the little critter in the birdhouse shaped clock. Standing on her tip toes she would reach up and turn the small wire latch that locked birdie’s door, they would both, then, sleep soundly through the night. First thing in the morning, Grandma would head for the living room and unlatch that little bird's door. Cuckoo bird could then fly out and sing her song on the next half hour.
Near the end of Grandma Minnie's life she sold the farm and moved to the city. Bird in the clock went with her; hung on the wall in the small apartment just off Bridge Street, near John Ball Park. When that old lady died, the Cuckoo Clock was passed on to her youngest daughter. She lived on the Grand to west of Eastmanville. Cuckoo in the clock spent a bunch of years there along the river, before being passed on to Grandma's oldest grandson. These days Cuckoo keeps time at his family's house, over there along Brandy Creek. |
