CHESAPEAKE, Va. - Every room of Archer Cox's home has at least one clock.

Clocks shaped like cats and pandas. Clocks with thermometers on them. Wall clocks that look like giant watches. Big grandfather ones. Antique clocks from a pub in England. Ones that go cuckoo.

A garage sits empty of cars, but full of more antique timekeepers. Cigar boxes and cardboard boxes stacked on shelves and a repair bench both hold the tiniest of tools: gears, clock faces and the inner workings Cox once used to repair the broken, or the left behind.

The World War II veteran who joined up just after Pearl Harbor prides himself on finding gems in landfills or antique shops and making off with a deal. It's about finding a special clock in a trash pile or on the side of the road, having the eye to spot value other people can't see.

Fascinated most by the mechanics and movement of an old clock he fixed, he said the most enjoyable part of a clock for him is also its most simple feature: "The way it ticked," he said.

By his daughter's count, there are 133 clocks in his modest one-story brick home in Western Branch, more than enough for one man and one small home - yet far less than his prime collecting days. Cox once had as many as 300. He doesn't do repairs anymore. The hobby requires sitting for long periods and tediously working with his hands.

But at 98 - about to celebrate his 99th birthday - Cox and his clocks are still teaching people how to take their time.

"My life is so fast-paced. I have so many irons in the fire," said his caretaker of four years, Leah Evans. "He has a way of slowing it down, focusing on one thing. That's what these clocks will do. We'll go out in the garage and he'd work out there and you'd have no choice but to slow down."

Born in Lynchburg on Aug. 13, 1920, Archer Haywood Cox went off to fight in the Pacific during World War II when he was 22 years old. He stayed in the Navy for the remainder of the war. When he got home, he took a job with Sears Roebuck. In the late 1950s he moved to Portsmouth, where he started working for a marine supply company. He eventually took a job and retired with the U.S. Post Office and has lived in Hampton Roads since.

Over the years, he took up an interest in restoring antique furniture. His son, Mike, remembers his father bringing home different pieces of furniture, putting them in the backyard and stripping them down.

"He would take something that you would think was nothing and end up with a beautiful piece of furniture," Mike Howell said.

Along the way, Cox got his hands on a clock. He fixed it up and was hooked.

Cox would often travel with friends to buy and sell clocks. He kept learning how to diagnose and fix old ones, and his name got out to friends and family as the guy who could fix your old, broken timepiece. He traveled all over the country, his wife sometimes tagging along, to antique clock shows through the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors.

Today Cox is hard of hearing and lives on his own, with the help of a full-time caretaking staff. His family often visits. His son, Mike, and daughter, Jane, as well as his grandson, Greg Howell, have antique clocks in their homes, ticking away, fixtures of the past that will remind them of their father for years to come.

The clocks in Cox's home don't tick and don't show the correct time. It's just too much effort to wind up all of them.

But they are still intimately tied to his life. Some days, Cox will lead Evans or other caretakers and family on tours that take an hour and a half. He's been known to start tours at 11:30 at night, stopping in front of each clock and telling the story of how he got it.

As the days go on, Evans says she will prompt him to go on these ritualistic tours of his memory. As he gets older, she said, it keeps his mind active and his feet moving.

It's his many clocks - the very things designed to march our days forward - that help keep Cox grounded.

"He lights up when he's talking about his clocks," Evans said. "I want him to stay excited about life. I want him to thrive in his environment, and that's where he thrived."

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