HICKORY DICKORY DOCK

Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down,
Hickory, dickory, dock.

This has been one of my favorite Nursery Rhymes for as far back as I can remember.  Why this one you ask?  I think it is because of a story I was once told about the meaning of the rhyme.  I have never been able to confirm if the story I was told is true or not but I still choose to believe it is.  Kind of like Santa and the Tooth Fairy.  Some people will try to tell us they don't exist either but we know better don't we?  I have seen the nickles and dimes left in the middle of the night under a pillow and the gifts under the tree on Christmas morning.  I have seen the smile on a child's face and have experienced the good will in a man's heart.  I know what is real and what isn't.  Just like the author of this nursery rhyme.  Some say it was written by a fellow named Oliver Goldsmith while others say it was a counting rhyme used by shepherds hundreds of years ago.  I choose to believe it was written by Mother Goose,  one of my all time favorite authors.  I know.  Now you are going to tell me Mother Goose was a fictional character  Believe what you want but I believe she was real and your not going to convince me differently.

Now about the story.  The way it was told to me was that many years ago the first big clocks were made with gears of wood.  Now these gears or splines took a long time to make and once they were made, they were in constant motion and under a lot of pressure from the other gears and splines as they turned the hands of the clock.  Like any piece of machinery,  these gears needed maintenance so they were oiled on a regular basis.  Now back in these days, they didn't have the lubricants we have today so the people would use animal fat to oil the gears.  Now the animal fat worked very well but the one downfall was that it attracted mice.  The mice would climb the clocks and gnaw or chew on the gears.  It was like the maintenance men were sitting up a mouse buffet.  The mice loved it and they told all their mice friends and they all came often to partake of this wonderful "All you can eat buffet."  Does this sound kind of familiar? Maybe the Golden Corral or Ryans.   Oh well,,, back to the story.  So here we had another downfall.  The mice gnawed and chewed and chewed and gnawed until the gears would have to be replaced which cost a lot of money and took a lot of time and hard work.  So a very smart man, an engineer I assume but not from Ga. Tech as this was before the year of the Yellow Jacket,  was asked to come up with a solution to the "animal fat / gear / mouse" problem.  He worked and worked to find a lubricant that wouldn't attract the mice but could come up with nothing.  He thought of putting poison in with the animal fat but decided the smell of thousands of dead mice would be to much to take, plus he didn't want to face the pressure from PETA.   Yes,  There were even tree hugging fanatics back then.  Then one day as the engineer was working at his desk,  one of the mice he had for his experiments got loose unbeknowst to him.  The mouse jumped up on the  desk and by chance turned over a small bell the engineer had sitting there that he used to summon his assistant.  As the bell rang,  it startled the mouse and in a blink of an eye the mouse was gone.  The engineer leaned back in his chair and  a smile came to his face as he realized he had discovered the first burglar alarm.  Have you ever noticed how many things are discovered by accident?   The name he came up with for his invention was  "Chimes" as it sounded much more Politically Correct  than burglar alarm.  You know,  you have to appease the PETA people even now days just as you did back then.

Well,  after installing the "chimes" (burglar alarms) on all the clocks the mice were scared away at every hour on the hour.  But,  just like happens with most good things,  this also came to an end.  You see,  after a while the sound of the chimes became  familiar to the mice and they discovered the chimes wouldn't hurt them  Instead of a deterrent, the chimes became a call to eat,  a dinner bell if you will.  Kind of amazing how we get so use to warnings after a while they don't frighten us any more isn't it.

Well,  that's not the end of the story.  You see,  a few years later there was a young man that had dropped out of school in the third grade  Although he wasn't what we would call educated,  he was very smart,  inquisitive, a hard worker and had a desire make life a better place for the people.  So at the young age of nine or ten he went to work for the town blacksmith to learn a trade.  He learned his trade well and went on to become a wonderful metal smith and to  invent metal gears and splines to run the clocks.  The mice found out very soon that steal wasn't near as tasty as wood marinated in animal fat.

Well there are many morals in this story.  If you look I'm sure you can find one worth sharing.  Some people will tell you it's not a true story but it's  My story and I'm sticking to it.

May your day be blessed by God