To the editor:

Do you like clocks? I do. Gee, I sounds like the late Andy Rooney, from the show he was on, “60 Minutes,” which started with a ticking clock and still does.

First, the clocks on the electronic message board in front of the Kickemuit Middle School on Child Street in Warren. There are two clocks on this beautiful brick facade — one digital, one face clock. Students are only taught digital now, so it is important upon arriving to school they see a real clock.

My point is, both clocks and the message board have been broken for three years.

I do not know who the principal of the school is. I don’t care. I do know that she or he does not care that the first thing seen when arriving to school each day is a broken message board and a clock gradually fading from view by overgrown weeds and trees.

Maybe the school committee is at fault for this neglect. Maybe they’re too busy in Bristol building a new high school.

Three years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor about two broken clocks – the one at the middle school and the one in front of Town Hall. The clock in front of Town Hall was repaired quickly. But I said it could use a paint job. To this date, no paint job.

This letter is not for our town manager, as the late Paul Harvey would say. He would like me to mention his name. Three times over three years I went to his office and asked to have the beautiful clock Mary Cabral donated to her town painted. My requests fell on deaf ears.

I have an idea on how to get the clock painted. I have noticed, as many of you must have, that most if not all the fire hydrants in town have been carefully painted. It’s the most attention they have ever gotten, except for the occasional dog leg.

Let’s put a hat on the fire plug near Town Hall and maybe the town manager would talk to it and ask how it got painted.

I was born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn and Long Island. I have been in Warren for nearly 50 years, and I love Warren’s small-town Americana.

I think those in charge could do a few small things that would beautify Warren in a big way. I want Mary Cabral’s clock to look like the day she gave it to Warren.

The Rolling Stones had a song, “Time is on my side,” but I am going to end this in the other words of Mick Jagger. “I want to paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it black!”

George Carroll

Warren