There are certain things from living in my childhood home with my parents that still really stick out to me. It’s funny how the strangest, most insignificant aspects of your childhood are often the things that stand out the most in your mind even decades later. I know that my parents had told me that this had happened to them, but it’s very strange when it starts happening to you.
My parents had musical cuckoo clocks in a couple of different rooms in our house. I remember that they would always go off synchronized on the hour and the little songs that came out of them would always get stuck in my head. Every now and then, those songs still get stuck in my head even though I haven’t lived with my parents in years.
8 Day Cuckoo Clocks And Many Other Clocks
There are many different types of clocks out there to match many different potential preferences. Many people these days forget about the convenience of clocks, since so many people have clocks on their phones and on their computers or on their cable boxes. Yet there are still many reasons that one would want a clock that you can easily glance at.
I enjoy analog clocks much more than digital clocks because I find them to be quite a bit more elegant. My favorite time of analog clock is the cuckoo clock and even with these, there are many different sub-categories of cuckoo clocks. Personally, I prefer 8 day cuckoo clocks to one day cuckoo clocks, because you can wind them much more infrequently.
The Tick-Tocks of Cherry Grandfather Clocks
I once worked in a clock shop with my father for a while and it nearly drove me insane. For one thing, my father is an eccentric person and he can be very strange sometimes, so following his rules in the workshop were often a little bit bizarre, even having expected this since I’d lived with him my whole life. Seeing him at home and at work though was a bit of overload.
The other thing that started to drive me a little bit insane was the tick-tock of the cherry grandfather clocks that we kept. They were perfectly synchronized and the sounds were sometimes quite noticeable, which started making feel like I was living in my own version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Telltale Heart”. Needless to say, I stopped working there after a while.
Eight Day And One Day Cuckoo Clocks
My father has worked in clock development and repair his whole life and he’s taught me a lot of interesting things about different types of clocks that I don’t think the average person knows about. He’s not a fan of digital clocks in any way and has always developed analog clocks; his favorite clocks in particular to work on are cuckoo clocks.
One thing a lot of people don’t know is that there are typically two kinds of cuckoo clocks – eight day cuckoo clocks and one day cuckoo clocks. Generally, cuckoo clocks are driven by a mechanical movement run by weights underneath the clocks. One day cuckoo clocks must have the weights pulled up manually each day, whereas eight day cuckoo clocks require this each week.
Moving A Grandfather Cuckoo Clock
I just moved into a new home and I had wanted to save some money during the actual move, so instead of hiring expensive movers, I gathered some of my friends and a U-Haul truck and we did it ourselves. It took a while, because I had a lot of furniture gathered up over the years, but we were able to move all of it in a day.
One of my favorite pieces of furniture, that actually gave us quite a bit of trouble, was my grandfather cuckoo clock, which was passed down to me by my own father. It was quite large and fairly heavy, so it was a little bit difficult getting into the house and set up where I wanted it. Then again, moving my couch was a lot more difficult than that!
I’m Crazy For Coo Coo Clocks
I love rummaging through yard sales. There’s always some unexpected treasure I come across. People throw out their things without fully knowing how much they’re worth. I’ve seen people sell hundreds of dollars worth of action figures for a few dollars. A few years back, I found some old baseball cards that were worth over a thousand dollars. You here stories of people finding ancient documents hidden inside old paintings and selling them to museums for millions. I haven’t had anything that big happen yet, but I still hold out hope.
This past weekend, I came across some old coo coo clocks at a garage sale. I didn’t think they were worth much money; I just liked the way they looked. I could tell that they were hand made and from a foreign country because of the writing on the back of it. I bought the three of them for twenty dollars and I took them home and hung them on my wall. I put them in different rooms and synched them up so I could hear the chimes they play every hour. I think it gives my house a rustic feel to it.
A Beautiful Hand Made Grandfather Clocks Exhibit
My girlfriend and I recently went to a bed and breakfast for a weekend. The owner was a retired French chef and his wife painted murals for a living. The place came highly recommended to us by a friend of ours. I have to admit that it lived up to the hype. The owner made us breakfast every morning and I can honestly say that it was the best breakfast I ever tasted in my life. It came in three courses and even included some home made French pastries.
There was also an art exhibit in the town we were staying in featuring hand made grandfather clocks. They were all beautifully crafted and had intricate designs. Some of them had elaborate chimes and some of them were just artfully simplistic. It was hard to believe that they were all crafted by hand. I wanted to commission one of the artists to make me a custom clock to put in my home but it would have probably cost me an arm and a leg. If I were to win the lottery, I think collecting grandfather clocks would be my new hobby.
My parents recently moved into a new home closer to my family so they can see their grandchildren more often. My brother and I helped with the move which wasn’t so bad overall. They decided to get rid of the majority of their furniture that they didn’t plan on using at their new home so all we had to do was move a couple of tables, their bedroom furniture, and some other things.
Looking through the basement of their old house, it shocked me to find the grandfather clock that used to be in the main hallway when I was a child. I remember hearing its tune as every hour passed and wondering where the sound came from. I asked my mother what she planned to do with the clock and she told me that she was going to sell it. I offered to take it off her hands and she agreed so long as I get it fixed professionally. She also wanted me to display it in the family room in my house so they and the children can enjoy it during visits and family parties
One of the most vivid memories I have is staying with my grandparents when my parents would be off working. A few afternoons a week, my grandparents would look after my brother and I after school let out. We would walk a few blocks to their house where we would do our homework while watching television. Every once and a while, we would just have the whole afternoon to just eat cookies or play outside in their yard.
I would always get quite the enjoyment out of an old cuckoo clock that was in my grandparent’s kitchen. Every hour on the hour, a red, wooden bird would announce the time to us. I remember the first few times I saw it, it would scare me. But as I grew older, I learned to enjoy it because it was obnoxiously loud and entertaining. The clock eventually stopped working but it still hangs on the wall in my grandparents’ kitchen to this very day. Maybe I should have it repaired one of these days so every hour can be as enjoyable as it used to be.
All Kinds of Clocks
As time goes on, I’ve noticed that there are so many different kinds of clocks these days; there’s enough to make your head spin. Excluding watches and digital clocks that are on every single new-fangled device that’s out there, there are grandfather clocks and wall clocks, desk clocks, and clocks for pretty much every area in the house. They come in all shapes and sizes and every house has got them.
I’ve personally always opted out of fancy digital alarm clocks or hokey novelty clocks. The clocks in my home are exclusively hand made cuckoo clocks. I like having clocks that I know were made carefully by hand rather than in a factory somewhere, I think it adds a bit of extra elegance to my home.