SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — We all wish we had more time, but as you’re about to see a Harrisburg, South Dakota man probably has more time than anyone.
Dick Cook, who is retired, has a lot of time on his hands these days.
A lot of time.
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Over the years, he and his wife Deb have collected countless clocks; on the shelves, on the walls, heck there are 14 just in this one bathroom.
“We started shortly after we got married,” Dick said.
And they’re not just any clocks.
These are mostly antiques; some over 100 years old.
Deb loves the craftsmanship and ornate details.
“And the fact that they can keep time, I find that interesting,” Deb said.
As peaceful and ryhthmetic as they sound, at times it gets a little coo-coo.
Believe it or not, these clocks make their own sounds every hour, every half hour, or some every 15 minutes.
It can get a little crazy.
“Only to those who don’t live with them,” Dick said.
“I don’t hear them except when they don’t work, when they are working I don’t hear them, when they stop, then I notice,” Deb said.
Dick started collecting clocks in 1968 and with over 300 of them you can imagine it takes up a lot of his time, no pun intended.
Very few of them are electric, so Dick has to keep them running like they did in the good ol’ days.
“Keys, good ol’ fashion clock keys, that winds the spring in the clock,” Dick said. “The key is merely inserted just like that and you wind the clock.”
They stay ticking for about a week, then he says it takes him about an hour to go around and wind them all up again.
Dick says don’t even get him started on daylight savings time.
But it’s a hobby he and his wife always find time for.
“She likes the looks of clocks, she likes the case on clocks, everything is different and everything has some kind of story,” Dick said.
Stories from all over the world.
They have four clocks from Vegas entertainers Sigfried and Roy.
“She can probably tell you 90% of the locations where we acquired a specific clock, clocks from the South Dakota Supreme Court Justice after he retired, who sold his collection of clocks, we have five or six from that collection,” Dick said.
He could go on and on about his collection, but unfortunately we’ve run out of time.
Dick says when he and his wife pass, their collection of clocks will go to their two daughters.
