A LOOK BACK:

It’s such a shame that the sights of our past are disappearing so fast that younger generations will have no idea of some of our accomplishments.

Such sites as buildings in the shape of animals or objects, traffic signals that had arms that said Stop or Go, the two pump gas stations or the outdoor clocks that once were a part of so many main streets across the country.

When I was growing up you could find clocks on a good many businesses, with their neon glow at night to tell passing motorists that they better hurry home for dinner.

Then there was the free-standing clock usually on sidewalks in front of jewelry stores that advertised the store and kept time as the years slipped away.

I remember seeing these huge outdoor clocks on the streets of downtown Los Angeles, Huntington Park and at one time we had two of these, one on each side of Main Street.

This week we’re going to look at the life of a man who had one of those timepieces standing on the sidewalk in front of his jewelry store on Main Street.

“King Tut had a wonderful line of jewelry stowed away in his big pyramid, but we have the latest in King Tut Cordeliers and earrings,” boasted jeweler T.R. Canady in 1923.

Canady spent the first quarter century of his life in Missouri where he received his formal education, and it was there that he took time to learn the watchmaking business.

He became known for his skill at repairing watches to the point that he once boasted he had repaired all the watches in his part of Missouri and once he repaired them they stayed fixed so he worked himself out of a job.

Packing up his watchmakers’ tools, Canady moved to California where he opened a jewelry and watch repair business in Fallbrook.

But times were difficult for the local farmers in the area when a drought hit one year and some of the farmers brought their pocket watches to Canady to fix and never returned to pick them up.

As any business owner will tell you, you can’t keep a business open when no money is coming in to pay the rent.

Again, Canady packed up his tools and moved out of Fallbrook and on March 2, 1911, he landed in Huntington Beach.

He then went about opening a small jewelry store in the Johnson Building (112-114 Main St.) and set about repairing the clocks and watches of our residents.

He also carried a fine line of diamond rings and pins that were later worn by many of our ladies in town.

From the first day he opened his jewelry business, prosperity smiled on the young man from Missouri.

In June, 1912, Canady moved his jewelry store across the street to 111 Main St., but in later years the address would change to 109 ½ Main St.

When he was not in the store, Canady could be found trying his luck with rod and reel fishing off our pier.

He once landed a 27-pound halibut from the pier, a record at the time.

A few of Canady’s fishermen friends were a little jealous of his record catch and were forever trying to beat it.

During World War I, when everything was in short supply, including fresh vegetables, the resourceful Missourian plowed a half acre of vacant land behind his store and planted it with vegetables.

From that garden he not only had a good supply for himself, but also sold $400 worth.

Then there was the time he lost more than $400 when he left a 1 1/2 diamond sparkler in his show window one night.

The night before he heard someone tapping the, window and he yelled at the fellow and frightened him away.

He told himself he would put that diamond in a safe place tomorrow night, but he forgot, and that night a burglar smashed the plate-glass window and grabbed the $429 diamond.

Canady who lived in the building was awakened by the sound of breaking glass, got up, grabbed his gun, and seeing the burglar fleeing down the street, took a shot at him and missed.

In later years he would tell his friends that if he had hooked that diamond onto a good line on his reel and pole, he would have landed him.

In the 1920s and ‘30s a stranger could locate his jewelry store by that big clock in front.

The street clocks are gone, but the memory of it continues, a timeless reminder of the time that Candy’s timepiece kept time on a timeless Main Street.

JERRY PERSON is the city’s historian and a longtime Huntington Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.