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A time-honored tradition Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Lowell Fronek sets a 100-year-old railroad-station clock from England in his Poplar Square clock shop, LC Antiques, where he�ll be resetting hundreds of timepieces come Sunday when daylight-saving time ends. Americans all over the country will set an average of seven home clocks back an hour to standard time. Setting clocks back keeps Medford shop owners ticking By Paul Fattig You could say the end of daylight-saving time is a ticking time bomb for Lowell Fronek. He and his wife, Nora, own LC Antiques in Medford, a shop with some 150 clocks � only one electric � not to mention a couple zillion watches. Ordinarily, the old clocks that need it are set each Monday morning. "By the time we get to the end of the week, showing people how this one �gongs� and how that one �cuckoos,� a lot of them need to be reset," Fronek said. But ALL of the ticking time machines will need to be reset on Sunday. In case you�ve lost track of time, Sunday � at precisely 2 a.m. � is when most Americans end daylight-saving time and return to standard time. Daylight-saving time allows an hour more daylight at day�s end by "springing ahead" 60 minutes on the first Sunday of April. On the last Sunday in October, Americans reclaim that hour by "falling back." The average American will reset seven clocks on Sunday, according to a poll by St. Louis-based Maritz Marketing Research, which touts itself as one of the world�s largest marketing research firms. The Froneks have only one "real" clock at home, not counting the electric timepieces built into gadgets like the microwave and VCR that will have to be reset. "I let my grandkid do that," Fronek said. Fronek won�t have any time to waste this weekend, what with all those clocks ticking away back at the shop. Although the shop is closed on Sunday, Fronek may have to drop in just to get the drop on Father Time. Tick, tock. Tick tock. Multiply that by 150 and you get a sense of the rhythm pervading the room. Fronek�s shop contains one of the largest collections of old-time timepieces in the region, observed Dave Thacker, owner of Old Timer Clock Repair & Restoration in Medford. "You can�t turn some of those old ones back," Thacker said. "The mechanism inside will not turn back. Best thing to do is stop them and start them back up an hour later. "Of course, in the spring, you just rotate them ahead," added Thacker, who has nine clocks to change in his home on Sunday. The main business at LC Antiques is repairing clocks and watches. There is such a demand for services that Fronek has a six-week backlog in watch repair and four months for clocks. The oldest clock in residence is a late 1700s vintage grandfather clock. Standing some 7 feet tall, it originated in England. "Every clock is different," Fronek said. "They all have their own personality." One round clock hails from a railroad station in England, circa 1890 or 1900. "It runs great," he said. "It has very nice movement. Good quality." The best non-electric clocks ever made were those built from the mid-1800s to the 1930s, he said. But craftsmanship has been lost in time, he observed. "The finest craftsmen were the American watch manufacturers � Elgin, Hamilton," he said. "The Swiss couldn�t hold a candle to the Americans. "Today, we don�t collect Swiss watches," he added. "We collect early American watches." A 1965 graduate of Oregon State University, majoring in engineering, Fronek later studied with a master watchmaker � a certified horologist � for four and a half years. "I always liked detail," said Fronek, who was wearing two watches on his left wrist and another on his right. But only the Seiko kinetic (wind-up) watch on his right wrist is his: the other two are in for repair. One is a kinetic, the other an automatic. "To make sure they work, I wear them," he said. "I can watch them to see exactly what�s going on." Tick, tock. Tick, tock. The rhythm never stops. "People come in here and ask, �How can you stand it?� " Fronek said. "To us, it�s like rain on the roof. It�s peaceful. "But if everything went immediately silent, we would hear that," he added. They will be silenced one at a time when he makes time stand still for the change. "It�s something we do twice a year," he said. "We�re used to it by now." Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.