Every Monday morning for years, at about 11:30 am, the telephone operator in a small Sierra Nevada town received a call from a man asking the exact time. One day the operator summoned up the nerve to ask him why the regularity.

"I'm foreman of the local sawmill," he explained. "Every day, I have to blow the whistle at noon, so I call you to get the exact time."

The operator giggled, "That's really funny," she said. "All this time, we've been setting our clock by your whistle.