Remember the movies which have an older and eerie painting of a person with eyes that seem to follow you across and around the room?  I remember many such movies and television shows over the years.  Mystery novels too, and even if I recall correctly, in Disneyworld and Disneyland.  Some times there are actual characters watching behind those paintings, and sometimes, well, it simply remains a mystery.

Well, here’s a twist on that old idea.  What if a grandfather clock, say from the 1700s, or even 1980, could talk and/or some how replay some of the more interesting things that it “heard” or “saw” over many generations.  What about one that made the journey to the New World from from Great Britain.  Perhaps it lived through the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, World World War I, World World II and on and in between.

Oh the History it could show, and the Stories it could tell or show would be simply spectacular and amazing.  Not long ago, we sold a British Grandfather Clock by a noted maker that had been made circa 1690.  Recognizing that grandfather clocks, or longcase or tallcase clocks as they were known in the Old World and back at that time, were first introduced in around the year 1650.  We figured this grandfather clock, which in some ways showed its age and in other ways defied time, could have been owned by something like 40 generations of individuals.  Talk about heirloom quality grandfather clocks!  It ended up going to a great collector, who took a strong personal interest in that particular grandfather clock.

Would not that make, potentially, a truly remarkable or interesting book?  If you take the idea, please give us a credit or thank you somewhere – maybe even dedicate the book or movie to us!

One chapter could be on a different family.  Or there could be vignettes mixed through the same or several generations.  Content from the world outside brought indoors, which certainly happens in real life, could be an integral part.  Civil War elements, or World War II, could each provide tragically rich and interesting material to work with time in and time out.

I think i need to sign off know and contact my literary agent.  Remember you read it here first.