The sound of downtown has changed recently, but don’t worry ... it’s not a conspiracy, nor are you hearing things.
For a long time, every hour on the hour, the Knox County Courthouse clock rang first. Then about three minutes later, the Winchester Chimes rang from the bell tower of Gay Street United Methodist Church, followed less than a minute later by a church hymn playing from the same tower.
Then daylight-saving time ended in the early morning hours of Nov. 2, and downtown Mount Vernon suddenly sounded different. Now the Westminster Chimes ring first, followed closely by the courthouse clock, which is quickly followed by a hymn.
What’s up with the bells?
Has anyone else been discombobulated by this change?
Have the folks who work downtown who depend on the bells for time-keeping become confused and arrived late for work, or early to work? Surely some of them were setting their watches by what my friend Phillip Chandler, who lived downtown until he passed away, called “Methodist Standard Time,” while others were counting on the courthouse clock for their schedules.
I walk to work most mornings, and always took comfort that, when the courthouse clock rang before I arrived at the newsroom, I wasn’t actually late until the church bell rang three minutes later ... because I was on Methodist Standard Time.
As it turns out, the recent change in the sound of downtown is the result of basic maintenance at both courthouse and church, brought about by both systems — which are computerized — “falling back” an hour.
Mike Scott, who works in maintenance at the courthouse and is in charge of setting the clock, said the circuit board that runs the clock doesn’t automatically adjust for the seasonal time changes. Reprogramming the circuit board would cost $1,000. So instead, Scott climbs up into the old tower and uses his cell phone’s time to set the clock’s time.
“But I believe the clock tower is one minute slow now,” he said on Friday. He intends to correct that very soon.
Reporters shouldn’t make assumptions, but I had always assumed that the two clocks, and the hymns, were courteously and genteelly synchronized so that one finished before the other began. Not true, said Scott. Those in charge of both bells have never even discussed it.
But, if both rang right on time, wouldn’t the sound of both bells ringing at once make one heck of a racket?
“So?” answered Scott. “They should both ring on time. I don’t purposely set it so they don’t both ring together, but I want mine to ring on time.”
At Gay Street Methodist, Jason Frazer, building manager, said he’d never tried to synchronize — or avoid synchronizing — the church’s bells with the courthouse’s.
“But I reset the bells with the time change, and changed the bell-ring format in the process,” he said. “I just use my cell phone, and hope for the best.”
Nonetheless, Methodist Standard Time is now almost the same as Eastern Standard Time, as it probably should be. Scott is right ... time should be accurate, whatever the device that’s telling it.
Still, I expect that at the top of some hour one day this week, we might be hearing the courthouse bell and the church bell vying together for our attention. The resulting cacophony should be interesting, to say the least. And as long as the hymn doesn’t start playing at the same time, too, we should all eventually get used to the new downtown sound.
But I’m going to miss Methodist Standard Time, especially when I’m late for work just by three minutes or so.
