Living in a cuckoo world again

Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo…
After a longer than anticipated break, I have found myself living in a cuckoo world again.
That statement alone is wide open for many different interpretations and realities, especially after the year we have been living this year.
But I’m not talking about politics, social issues, health crises or any other every day issue. Instead, I’m referring to a small wooden device that hangs on my wall giving off hints of what time it is.
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo and away it goes off.
For years, I have owned a German cuckoo clock thanks to a gift from my parents after they traveled to Germany where our ancestry hails from. A while back my cuckoo was rendered inoperable and sat silent for quite some time. That’s not a good thing for a cuckoo clock or a cuckoo like me who relies on some cuckiness in his life.
I finally found a clock repair shop in the area. After a couple months in the shop, it’s back up and running again on my wall at home chirping away every hour on the hour and half hour.
For those who haven’t had the pleasure, a cuckoo clock is a pendulum-regulated clock that strikes the hours with a sound like a common cuckoo’s call and has an automated cuckoo bird that moves with each note. The mechanism to produce the cuckoo call has been in use since the middle of the 18th century and has remained almost without variation.
In traditional cuckoo clocks, the “coo coo” sound is derived from a system of bellows pushing air through two wooden whistles to recreate the distinctive two-note call of the common cuckoo. My cuckoo also plays music after the chirping.
It’s unknown who invented the cuckoo and where the first one was made. But it is believed that much of its development and evolution was made in the Black Forest area in southwestern Germany. These clocks were exported to the rest of the world from the mid-1850s on.
Today, as evidenced by my parents, the cuckoo is one of the favorite souvenirs of travels in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. It has become a cultural icon of Germany.
It fits in right along with my German nutcrackers and smokers.
The cuckoo clock is something very special. It’s a relic that I plan to adorn my home for many years to come.
If anything, the cuckoo eases the mind a bit from the cuckoo world we find ourselves in right now.
Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo…
Time to go in hot pursuit of winding up the cuckoo clock again.