THE JESSOP’S CLOCK, located in the middle of Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego, was commissioned in 1905 by Joseph Jessop, owner of a jewelry store. Claude D. Ledger, an employee of Jessop’s jewelry store, built the clock in fifteen months, completing it in 1907 in time for it to be entered in the Sacramento State Fair where it won a gold medal. Many clocks could tell stories if they could talk. It is said that on the day of Ledger’s death, Jessop’s clock stopped working for reasons unknown. It was restarted and continued keeping time until April 2009. After the clock was cleaned and refurbished, it was returned to its place in Horton Plaza where I took the picture today.
REAL TIME

Real time,
or, “in real time,”
was the exact expression
he used in easy conversation
as if everybody would know
or should know
what he meant.

He had that same self-satisfied
bordering on disgust look
that’s fixed in my mind
as the face of my high school physics teacher.

What the hell is real time?
I want to know!

Is this stuff I’ve been swimming sometimes
wading mostly through
not real time?

Is bathroom time not real time?
How about lunch?

Is there more or less of real time
than whatever the alternative is?

I understand centuries and decades,
years, months, weeks, and days.
I know what a minute is.
Don’t mess with my head
by suggesting I’ve wasted...
what?
With clocks and calendars?
What kind of time?
My Clock has a story... I'll write it another time.
Bill Derisi's ships clock...
San Diego Trolley Center Clock Tower