Oh man shit! When I was just a little boy sleeping over my grandmothers house I remember the gonging of the clock, even from the back upstairs bedroom I could here it’s crazy tune. Every fifteen minutes it announced the rigid time and as it approached the new hour it sung evermore louder its wonderful song. But that clock was there standing witness to her cheating at card games and at my innocence in fervent denial.
But today this clock was transferred under my roof and with it a great responsibility not yet known until now. It took a long while to set & perfect its time and its weights stand by in pure utterance of any imperfection.
Anyhow, now it is mine and I dare you to prove it wrong!
Egad. Grandfather’s clocks creep the hell out of me. You can hear your life slipping away… :eek:
I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but I do not know how you can stand to have one in your house!
My grandmother had a ticking clock in every room of her house. When I would have to stay overnight as a kid, the sound of different ticking clocks in the darkenss, in every room of that house, drove me stark raving mad!
My SO used to have a collection of Swatch watches, and I had to put them in a box with cotton, stuffed in a drawer in the living room so I wouldn’t have to hear that tick, tick, tick all night.
But if you like it, more power to ya and I guess congrats are in order. You won’t be getting me to come over for any sleepovers, but I doubt that bothers you a whole lot.
This is your life, and its ending one minute at a time.
Grandfather clocks also remind me of my grandparents house. But mostly happy memories associated with those sounds, and I find the atmosphere they impart quite soothing.
A guy at church often has people over for movies. The TV room has a clock on the wall that has to play a tune every half hour and then gong out the hour on the hour.
It’s a tradition to say the most sarcastic praise for the inturrupting clock:
Love the clock!
Thank God for the clock!
Fantastic clock!
What would we do without the clock?
I can’t stand that clock.
Stark raving mad, you say? As though a low, dull, quick sound, much like the sound of a watch being enveloped in cotton were being driven into your brain over and over again, louder and louder, finally driving you past your breaking point and compelling you to tear up the floorboards in front of the policemen and scream, “VILLAINS! DISSEMBLE NO MORE! I admit the deed! – tear up the planks! – here, here! – IT IS THE BEATHING OF HIS HIDEOUS HEART!”
Er, sorry. Got a little carried away there. clears throat Soooo, how 'bout them grandfather clocks, eh?
This is why I plan to have in my house (after I’ve become rich and won several Nobel prizes) a room filled with many types of large and small ticking clocks, all with slightly different tones, and all set in near perfect (but slightly off) synchronization. In this room I will have chats with persons who I wish to manipulate or possibly interrogate (especially if I happen to have a daughter). I will also make sure that the other persons chair has one leg just a bit shorter than the others, and that some of the colors are slightly different than one would expect to see. I, of course will not be affected by these psychological triggers, as I plan to go in there regularly, to train my self, and develop an imunity.
I have two chiming clocks in my living room. My only problem with them is that sometimes I miss a line or two of dialog in a TV show while they are chiming the hour.
My uncle Gene collects clocks. My cousins said, if they woke up in the middle of the night and heard one chime, they didn’t know if it was 12:30, 1:00, or 1:30, or some other half hour. They had to stay awake until the next chime.
Did the clock or the song come first? (Mods, the lyrics are public domain)
“My grandfather’s clock was too big for the shelf,
So it stood 90 years on the floor.
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn
Of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
And it STOPPED. Short.
Never to go again when the old man died.”
There’s more but I don’t remember it. It was written in the late 1800s by Henry Clay Work
“My Grandfather’s Clock” is now playing on continuous loop in my brain. Thanks a lot Rooves and picunurse. 
Congrats on inheriting the clock Rooves. I think grandfather clocks are great.
And if the clock had a vulture’s eye on it’s face…
Adm. Hyman Rickover had a chair in his office where the two front legs were shorter than the back ones, apparently to make interviewees uncomfortable.
It’s the same for me although when I was a kid the clock seemed much louder when I was trying to avoid the monsters in the night. Now it’s just a soothing sound. I keep seeing in my mind my grandmom pulling the chains to wind it.
Real grandfather clocks scare me. I remember I could never sleep at a couple of my friends’ houses because the clock was always there being frightening.
My parents, however, have a French country clock that’s similar to a grandfather clock, but bowed on the sides. And it goes “ding” instead of “dong”. It’s rather delicate and my dad (being my dad, so I’m sorry if any of the following seems offensive) swears it’s the gay younger brother of the imposing, impressive clock he really wanted.
“Diiiing!” says the clock.
“Don’t be mean, dad,” says I. “It can’t help the way it was made.”
You don’t have to have them in operation, you know. 
They can look cool just sitting in your hallway.
For old, antique clocks, it’s better for them not to run.
My parents had a ship’s clock on their mantle. Its bells were based on a 4-hour “watch”, starting at noon, 4pm, 8pm, and so on. At 12:30 a single bell would sound, then two at 1:00, three at 1:30, and up to eight at the end of the watch at 4:00. Then it started all over.
I loved that clock. If I woke up in the middle of the night and heard “ding-ding ding-ding ding-ding ding” I knew it was 3:30, and all was well with the world.
I have a GF clock, and the movement has some problems: it keeps good time, but the chimes don’t work at ceratin hours. this is because the 'snail" wheel gear is broken in spots. i’m told repar is very expensive. Can I replace the mechanical movement with a quartz movement? Do these quartz replacement units also have chimes? i’d like to have a movement with Westminster ans St. michael chimes…anyone know where i should look?
I’ve always wanted one of those. I don’t like the electric ones though, and the 8-day wind-up ones cost around $350. Still, I have the page marked in my boating catalogue. 
For some reason I read the OP title as Godfather clocks. They tell you the time, and you better listen.
hehehehehehe 
http://www.klockit.com/grandfatherclockhistory.aspx says the clocks were called “long case” or “floor” clocks until the song came along, and it was so popular the name stuck. That page also claims the song’s loosely based on an actual clock.