Of course Jane Sarles did.

No matter that, at 86, Sarles needs a wheelchair to get around and no longer drives. She remains on Clarksville's watch as well as anyone half her age could.

If only more of us in any community, of any age, care like does Sarles.

Here it was, time recently for Sarles to worry about getting time back on track. That clock is a Clarksville landmark. So, someday, can be a park along the Ohio River being planned by the River Heritage Conservancy.

A determined, respectful outfit, the Conservancy called on Sarles for stories about the property for which it imagines a future worthy of its past. To want to know Clarksville is to want to know Sarles, all right.

She actually wrote the book on the place.

A restless retiree, Sarles helped lead Clarksville's historic society to reality and stayed in front for years. She steadily convinced her hometown not only to recognize its uniqueness but to make the most of it. So little wonder the Conservancy gets more than Sarles' appreciation and cooperation.

Most notably, it also gets Sarles' pleas to dig - to unearth whatever remains of a riverside fort built centuries' ago by an officer in George Rogers Clark's army. Sarles provides both informed clues and hard-to-discount hope."That'd be a great thing," Sarles told me.

"I'm still trying to do my thing, put it that way."

Sarles lives these days in Westminster, a nicely-thought-of complex for seniors in the shadow of the Veterans Parkway mayhem. A widow, Sarles most looks forward to her next visit or chat from a child (three) or grandchild (also three).

She seemed considerably less thrilled about an approaching session with a physical therapist.

Born into a farm family in Livonia, in nearby Washington County, Sarles was still a girl when she began to call Clarksville home. She rode a city bus to high school in New Albany - Clarksville was yet to have a high school - and was graduated in 1950.

She married at 18 to a husband then transferred to a job in Richmond, Virginia. They divorced after 12 years and she returned to Clarksville.

Her second husband, Jerry Sarles, encouraged her every way possible. That included not only motherhood but also two college degrees and a career as a public and school librarian. Sarles was bitten by the library bug by happenstance. She needed work and IU Southeast, then in Jeffersonville, needed a part-time clerk type in its meager basement library. "All my life I've fallen into things," Sarles said. "I'm happy the way it worked out. I'm a pretty impulsive person. I go along with the flow.

"These little things - we hang our life on them."

Like when Sarles went to her local newspaper, the then-called Evening News, to complain about the content of its now-gone Olden Times column. Instead of lip service, Sarles was offered the gig. Like they could call her bluff. With a pro's touch and a zealot's commitment, Sarles wrote the column a decade. And if the pay sort of stunk ($30 a week), the accompanying profile did not. "I was a celebrity," she said, smiling.

Active in the League of Women Voters, Sarles volunteered to councilman Bob Popp to help organize the town's documents and such. That led to Popp, no fool, including Sarles in a group that formed the historical society. "I had retired," Sarles said. "I wasn't busy. I needed something to do."

Sarles was no expert on Clarksville history. Who was? "There never had been any real research done," Sarles said. "I guess that's what made it attractive. It was an open, unplowed field."

The challenge was clear and clearly daunting. Naturally, Sarles said yes two decades ago. Why? Why not? "Until I know better," Sarles said.

Sarles the historian had had a head start as Sarles the genealogist. There is a ton of fun, she believes, connecting dots discovered in old records and the like. A hoot as well was the group that formed. Membership grew to more than 200 and the society had to move meetings to larger rooms. "Clarksville people had always been conscious of being different," Sarles said. "They wanted the town to gets its due."

The Society jumped into Lewis and Clark reenactments. It led tours of the riverfront. Sarles put together a presentation and took it on the road. She published a popular monthly newsletter.

Available copies of Sarles' book on Clarksville history are few and far between.

To have something to say, to write, Sarles made herself at home in libraries near and not-so near. She blew dust off old maps as well as a copy of the minutes of town leaders' first meetings. "That was part of the fun of it," Sarles said. "I found out lots of things."

She and Society members hiked along Silver Creek, likewise learning all the way. "My husband was right here with me," Sarles said. "We had wonderful times, wonderful days."

Sarles continued to pitch in on Clarksville's well being. She served on a board looking to breathe new life into the area around Colgate, for instance. Age tends to get the last laugh, though a slowed-down Sarles cannot totally be stopped. "Thank God for the computer," she said. "I do the best I can."

Sarles repeats how she had much devoted help and support. When asked, Sarles said she is proud of her research, proud of her role in Clarksville's stepped-up historic preservation.

A grateful town named a new street in her name.

And now Sarles' leadership includes guiding the River Heritage Conservancy to the ambitious heights it pledges to climb. Sarles cannot fix big, old, out-of-whack clocks. But she can urge the Conservancy literally to leave unturned no stone.

"It's always good to be involved with something bigger than yourself," Sarles said.