Skip to main content

Fightin’ Words: “I’m Gonna Clean your Clock!” by Mark Hatmaker


To our ears quaint, in a former time formidable, the expression “I’m gonna clean your clock!” was not a mere amusing gibe heard bandied about in a 1930s film but a bondafide threat with a meaning well understood by all.

Until the 1940s the pre-dominant mode of mass-transportation in the United States was via railway. Indeed, America had embraced the automobile, but railroad tracks spanned and spider-webbed the nation whereas roads, while plentiful, were not quite what we may expect.

In 1927 the first transcontinental highway in the world, Lincoln Highway, was only continuously paved from New York to Iowa. From there paving was intermittent, signage rare, roadside markers almost nonexistent. In the words of one contemporary user of the road, the highway was “largely hypothetical.”

So, while the automobile was on the rise the railroad dominated. Everyone knew railways, had some experience with them and to an unusual degree the railroad was held in a bit of romantic regard as it was the best way to travel.

Popular novels were written with railroaders as the heroes, Frank Spearman’s Whispering Smith, for example, and there were entire magazines devoted to stories of adventure and romance on the rail road with Railroad Stories being a prime example.

With the United States steeped in railway culture more than a few words specific to the industry and trade were in common usage in everyday life.

In the days of steam locomotives, the engines were powered by creating enormous pressure in the boilers to drive the rods. A skilled engineer and crew were required to keep the boiler running powerful enough to attack steep grades, make long journeys, and always with a watchful eye on keeping the boiler on this side of explosion [of which there were many.]

A keen eye on the boiler gauge, or the “clock” was a vital requirement. If an emergency stop was required, the train couldn’t stop with a full-head of steam. With nowhere to vent the energy the boiler would blow killing crew and destroying mighty expensive property. To make an emergency stop the entire head of pressure had to be vented from the boiler so that the gauge/clock read to zero.

The emergency command to stop meant venting all steam-pressure first, before braking the engine. The command to vent the pressure was “Clean the clock!”

Once the clock showed zero the boiler was considered harmless. Naturally the expression trickled to the railyard itself where Bulls [foremen and rail detectives who kept order around the yard and aboard the trains] when they rendered an individual unconscious, they were said to have made him harmless, to have cleaned his clock.

How some of these Bulls cleaned clocks is another story altogether. And a mighty vicious one at that.

Another day.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Apache Running by Mark Hatmaker

Of the many Native American tribes of the southwest United States and Mexico the various bands of Apache carry a reputation for fierceness, resourcefulness, and an almost superhuman stamina. The name “Apache” is perhaps a misnomer as it refers to several different tribes that are loosely and collectively referred to as Apache, which is actually a variant of a Zuni word Apachu that this pueblo tribe applied to the collective bands. Apachu in Zuni translates roughly to “enemy” which is a telling detail that shines a light on the warrior nature of these collective tribes.             Among the various Apache tribes you will find the Kiowa, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Chiricahua (or “Cherry-Cows” as early Texas settlers called them), and the Lipan. These bands sustained themselves by conducting raids on the various settled pueblo tribes, Mexican villages, and the encroaching American settlers. These American settlers were often immig...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Conversation with Neil Melanson by Mark Hatmaker

Here is a chat I had with a good man with a good mind, Neil Melanson. If you are unfamiliar with Neil’s exemplary work he has coached at Xtreme Couture, Alliance MMA, and a HC with the Blackzilians. He is now at gym Genesis Training Academy and Coach of the Filthy Few MMA team. -DVDs out are: Head Hunter, Catchwrestling, and Ground Marshal guard basics  -book Mastering Triangle Chokes -black belt under Karo Parisyan in the Hayastan Grappling System  First things first, Brother Neil, thanks for taking the time to have this chat. Allow me to get another thing out of the way, your book Mastering Triangle Chokes , top-notch. This is high-speed, low-drag stuff all the way. Often there is chaff to be culled through, but you have a linear approach that appeals to the pragmatic streak in me. Excellent work. Thanks a lot man.  You are a real articulate and detailed coach so that means a lot coming from you. Your approach to grappling appeals to my expansiv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Walk Like a Warrior by Mark Hatmaker

In reading contemporary historical accounts written by soldiers (cavalry and dragoon), settlers, scouts, pioneers, and other citizens of the American frontier 1680s-1880s, I find mention that Native Americans (“Indians” or “Savages” in the accounts) did not walk like “white men.” Their gait, stride, and foot placement is described often in poetic terms as “light” or “light-footed,” “fleet”, “gliding”, and often times “springy” or “spring-like.” These terms while descriptive of the effect do little to tell us the how or why of the gait. We can find clues in accounts given by trackers in any of the myriad “Indian Wars” or skirmishes that riddled the continent in the first few centuries of the settling of the nation. The obvious telltale barefoot or soft impression of a moccasin is often a giveaway that you have a Native American track but this is less so in the moccasined foot as more and more Anglo backwoodsmen adopted this footwear. But there are a few accounts that mention ...
4 comments
Read more