The Black Forest Cuckoo Clock and other Time-ly Pieces

Pictured below is my latest pride and joy: a genuine, made-in-the-Black-Forest, cuckoo clock! It softly "tick-tocks" (1/4 second period) from its perch high on the wall above the first landing of our open stairway, easily viewed by everyone coming in our house.

This clock was a gift from my eldest son (and fellow-LMP aficionado). He said it was a belated Christmas present to both his Mother and me. However, he managed to let her in on the secret so Grumpy would be totally mystified by the e-mail from said son, who wrote from Germany that there would be "two packages: one big and the other quite small, but very heavy".

Well, Grumpy was mystified alright! When he opened the first package (the big one) he almost broke down crying with joy upon identifying the contents! As most of the immediate relatives of the "Grump" know, he is an absolute "nutcase" over mechanical clocks (and watches). Looking at the details in the photo at right, one can see along the bottom (left to right) an inviting bench, a water wheel that turns on the hour, a man splitting wood, a stack of unsplit logs and around the corner, a pump and trough. At the peak under the overhanging roof is where the Cuckoo comes out on the half hour and the hour, with the dancers immediately below, who dance on the balcony every hour in time with music which alternates between two different German tunes. The Cuckoo, the Dancers and the music politely "rest" between the hours of 8:30 pm until 8:00 am.

Grumpy's first interest in such mechanisms began when he was about 8 years old and rescued an old bedside alarm clock from the garbage, took the case off and figured out how to get it running again. He never bothered to put the works back into the case, and as a matter of fact, didn't even bother to put the hands back on the front! Instead, Grumpy figured out how to get it to awaken him at 5 o'clock each morning so he could fire up the old lignite-burning furnace that heated our house and then go upstairs to start the fire in the wood-burning cookstove so his mother could make pancakes for breakfast.

But I digress! This post is about clocks. So I will show you a photo of each of the major mechanical timepieces gracing (the Grand Mother might add a "dis-" in front of that word) our humble abode.

Next after the Black Forest Cuckoo clock is the "Grandfather's Clock". This clock was given to me by my First Wife on the occasion of ... well, never mind what occasion it was; that will just lead to a major disagreement (like Uncle Bert and Aunt Ruby?). Needless to say, it is very highly prized by Grumpy and is featured among the personal things listed in his will to be bequeathed.

The "Grandmother's Clock" is proudly displayed atop the oak display cabinets in which the Grand Mother keeps her finest glassware, her Shirley Temple doll and her "herd of elephants", among other memorabilia. It is not kept wound and running because its pendulum period is not an integral number relative to the Grandfather clock. This is annoying to Grumpy because of the seemingly random "tick-tocking" which goes on persistently when all the clocks are running. Most of you know that the Grandmother's Clock actually belongs to the Grand Mother; but Grumpy is proud to have it represented with all of the mechanical timepieces he adores.

The "Banker's Clock" sits on the middle landing of the open stairway to the basement. This clock is also not kept wound because of the non-integral nature of its pendulum as mentioned above. The "Bank" clock originally included a series of advertisements mounted on a four-faced box which rotated each five minutes to display all four in turn. Unfortunately, this spring wound mechanism disappeared long before it came under Grumpy's care. This clock is also rightfully-claimed by the Grand Mother.

We have two "Anniversary Clocks". My mechanical favorite is a spring-wound marvel that has a rotary pendulum. The rotary pendulum has a period (from beginning of one clockwise motion to the beginning of the next clockwise motion) of about eight or ten seconds. It's large mass and small radius of rotation is such that there is very little impediment caused by air drag. Therefore very little energy needs to be added each cycle to keep it running, and that is why a single winding every 400 days is sufficient. It would be wound once a year -- on the couple's anniversary. Unfortunately, Grumpy broke the torsion spring on which the pendulum hangs. So this clock is not currently operational. Instead, the Grand Mother and Grumpy have a quartz (electronic) anniversary clock (Grumpy's sentimental favorite), powered by a "C" battery, that plays the tune, "Ave Maria" on the hour. The battery needs changing approximately every 400 days. We change it on June 17th -- our anniversary.

Finally, this "time-ly" posting comes to an end with these photos of the front and back of a pocket watch which my Dad carried during his last years. This one has a Nickel-Silver case on the back of which is engraved, in my Dad's neat printing, "Time is the stuff your life is made of. Don't waste it!". This is a Hamilton pocket watch, with 7 jewels as bearings for the most lightly loaded axes (two on each of the "balance wheel", the ratchet gear and the gear that drives the ratchet wheel, and one on the loaded end of the next gear. Jewels are made of a gem-type material (such as ruby or sapphire) with the hole for the gear axle drilled through the center and finished to a precision of millionths of an inch. Unfortunately, this watch was left out in the weather after my Dad died, resulting in its "hair-spring" corroding away. I hope to have the hair-spring replaced some day, but doubt if it will ever be able to be adjusted to keep the good time that it was capable of originally.

My Dad had a gold-cased Elgin pocket watch that was given him on the occasion of his graduation from high school in 1917. He carried it to France during his service in the Army Air Corps; it has a "ding" along the edge of the case from being dropped from my Dad's upper bunk to the steel floor of the troop ship. I had admired this watch when I was a young boy and my Dad promised me that when he got "too old to read the time", he would give it to me. In fact, he gave it to me upon my graduation from high school in 1945! That's when he started carrying the Hamilton mentioned above. In keeping with the tradition, I passed the Elgin on to my oldest son, Ward Harry, when he graduated from high school in 1967. He has passed it on to his oldest son (Ward Howard) when "Howard" graduated from high school (I believe, in 1997 -- 90 years after the first "WHZ" received it on the same occasion!).