Category: 20th Century Nostalgia

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20th Century Nostalgia

My Kit-Cat clock stopped swinging two years ago

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I only have the Kit-Cat Klock company to blame, but I won’t even do that.

I’ve held onto my Kit-Cat clock for long enough. I’m giving up. I won’t throw it away, mind you, but I’ll relegate it to the back of a shelf in the laundry room.

In 2014, my daughter  gave me the clock as a birthday present. It operated beautifully for about two years and then stopped. After consulting the trouble-shooting website, none of the possible remedies for the malfunction fit. The only one that seemed plausible was to replace the batteries, so I did. Still no success.

So I put the dang thing away for another day. That day came and after piddling around a little more, I figured out that I had earlier replaced the batteries incorrectly. After correcting that, my Kit-Cat Clock swung again and it was just peachy… until it wasn’t. About a year later, those eyes and that tail stopped again. The clock still worked, but the eyes and the tail—the reasons one purchases a Kit-Cat Clock in the first place— didn’t.

So I replaced the batteries again. Nothing. Dorked around with the eyes again. Zilch. I took the batteries out again, and then put in different batteries. Nada. Tapped and moved a few internal parts and still no go. Then I looked a little closer at the clock. No, it wasn’t working after all.

This was more serious than I thought. The Kit-Cat clock might actually be finally dead, I thought, ready now more than ever to just chuck the whole thing in the trash.

But I didn’t. I left it, still and silent, on the wall.

About a year later, we moved. And since I’m never one to give up, I packed the clock (all the while asking myself why am I doing this?!) and moved it into our new home, where I eventually tried yet again about a month ago to revive the pile of plastic. Still no luck.

By this time, my devotion to the clock began to wane. I had lost patience and chucked the poor, cute little clock into the trash. (Okay, it’s not as cute as it used to be. Could that grin actually be a smirk?!)

However, half an hour later, I knew I couldn’t leave it there. So I went back, lifted the cat from the garbage can, dug around for the tail, and found it. And then I placed the clock and its accompanying tail in the laundry room. It’s sitting there at this very minute.

And there you have how much I like Kit-Cat clocks. Even when they don’t work, I still keep them for two possible reasons: 1) I like old things; hence my collection of twenty-four vintage metal recipe boxes that looked really awesome alongside my Kit-Cat clock… when it worked, and 2) the clocks remind me a little of my childhood and a board game we kept in the hall closet based on Felix the Cat. I remember looking at the game, but not really knowing how to play it. Or maybe I did know how to play, but didn’t have someone to play it with. (Who knows?! This was a very long time ago and I couldn’t have been more than six years old.)

It doesn’t matter. My Kit-Cat clock is now officially dead. I tried to save it. Several times, in fact.

I can’t even blame the malfunction on Chinese manufacturing. The Kit-Cat Klock Company (yes, they spell clock with a K) is based near Los Angeles in Fountain Valley, California and makes every clock right there as it has since 1932.

I only have the Kit-Cat Klock company to blame, but I won’t even do that. Even though it doesn’t work, I still like my crazy clock, and even though it makes me a little sad to see it staring lifelessly back at me in the laundry room, I probably won’t get rid of it anytime soon. Call me sentimental.

Thanks for reading! If you can believe it, this post about my Kit-Cat clock is my highest-performing post of all time on this blog. Go figure. I wrote it at the last minute just before we ventured over to my in-laws in 2016 for Christmas Eve. Today, I thought it was time for an update on my clock, even if there’s nothing really to tell except that it is now officially dead.

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20th Century Nostalgia Food & Recipes Memoir & Narratives

“There is nothing like a good old recipe. If it has lasted, then it is good.” Yotam Ottolenghi, Israeli chef

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Photo: Collin Yung

I collect vintage metal recipe boxes. I have eighteen in my collection. Some were purchased from ebay.com, but most were found here and there while scouting antique shops and junk stores. Most of the boxes in my collection are empty, but three contain recipes inside. Those with the recipes are ephemeral time capsules that echo with the writings of one woman’s time spent in her kitchen.

The one above was found at a little place called Shop Girl in Jefferson City, Missouri over lunch hour one day when I was visiting the city for an education conference. On my first sweep through the store, I completely missed it. As I was leaving, the shop owners asked me what I was looking for and then directed me to a display where this one was tucked. It’s perfect. Retro graphics and typography, made in USA, hinges on the lid, a few rough and rusty spots from frequent use, and… drumroll, please… recipes inside! Many of the recipes are even handwritten and all are very fragile.

There are recipes for peanut butter cookies, molasses snaps, angel cookies, prune cookies, toffee nut bars, pecan bars, chess bars, mincemeat cookies, peanut brittle, brownie drops, pecan strips. Clearly, this baker had a sweet tooth. Or perhaps this box held only her cookie recipes.

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Many of the recipes are clips from newspapers and magazines, but a good number are handwritten in cursive on note paper. A recipe for pecan sticks is written on a sheet from a notepad printed for the “New N&W Railroad… First Rate for Fast Freight.” A recipe for pecan bars appears on a sheet for “Union Pacific Railroad, The Automated Railway that Serves all the West.” One recipe is on the back of a daily expense report for “country salesmen” for Iten Biscuit Company and its Snow White Bakeries.

It’s nice to have something specific to search for when I venture into a nostalgia shop. It’s even nicer when I spot a vintage metal recipe box to bring home.

If you enjoyed this post, click “like” and leave a comment! Also share on social media if you so desire. Thanks for reading!

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20th Century Nostalgia

My Kit-Cat Clock Swings Again: Let Christmas Begin!

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My daughter gave me a Kit-Cat clock two years ago. Y’know, the black cat clocks with the moving tail and eyes? It’s one of my favorite things and looks great in the kitchen. About two months ago, I noticed it had stopped moving. It still kept time, but the tail and eyes were stationary. A Kit-Cat clock that doesn’t move looks sad and stifled. Stagnant.

I figured that there was probably a trouble shooter’s guide online, so I googled and found videos and said guide. I viewed all the videos, read the instructions, replaced the two “C” batteries exactly as shown in the diagram, balanced the clock on the table, gave the tail a nudge, and it still didn’t work. Kept time, but no moving tail and eyes. Bummer.  I couldn’t get the magnetic forces and batteries coordinated, apparently, to power the animation.

So I went after the eyes. They must be the problem, I thought. The website said that any dust or grease on the eyeballs might cause friction in the magnetism, so I cleaned them off.  Prowling (sorry) around inside the clock, I thought how this bit of 1930s-era Americana kitchen decor is an engineering marvel. There are  J-clips, a platform, a lever, eyeball pins, eye stems and loops that rotate and hold the stems. There’s a magnet, two batteries, that tail and the back panel. So I put it all back together, and still no cat show.

I hung it back up, deciding to tackle the problem another day… which brings me to today.  I pulled the clock back down and  removed the back panel of the clock. Actually, sliding-snapping-scootching (in that order) the back panel off is probably the hardest part of the whole ordeal.

I’ll put brand new batteries in it again, I thought, clinging to the hope that it could be that simple. I pulled out the left battery and caught a glimpse of the battery placement diagram embossed in the shiny black plastic.  Positive up. Whoa. Positive was down. How did I screw that up, I wondered? I thought I had replaced them earlier exactly as shown. All this toil, head-scratching, opening, closing, and scootching and an upside down battery is to blame?  I flipped the battery around, nudged the tail, and my Kit-Cat clock was back in business. Problem solved. Order restored. You may now resume your Christmas festivities.

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20th Century Nostalgia

Okay-Tasting Ugly Stuff: A Freakie Love Affair

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I learned to like ugly stuff in the 1970s. Didn’t everyone? Did we have a choice? For example, Freakies Cereal came out in the early 1970s and it was ugly. However, it was also yellow and crunchy and okay-tasting. Cap’n Crunch without the peanut butter flavor, if I remember correctly.

The Freakies were a gang of seven monsters that remind me now of the blobby ghosts in 1984’s Ghostbusters movie. The gang included BossMoss, Snorkeldorf, Cowmumble, Hamhose, Grumble, Goody-Goody and Gargle.

The Freakies plied their namesake cereal in TV commercials whose length would rival today’s never-ending pharmaceutical ads.The Freakies were always searching for the Freakies tree, which is where the cereal grew. Naturally.

For a while, Freakie fans could collect colored flexible Freakies magnets.I remember arranging the magnets on our white refrigerator. I would usually put one in the middle, as if it were onstage, and the others would encircle it. Or sometimes I would arrange them in rows.

I remember having a disproportionate number of Boss Moss magnets.  He was green and bumpy, and held up one index finger as if to say, Please don’t forget us after we’re gone! I didn’t. Even though they were all friendly creatures, they were also a little bit odd and other-worldly, sorta like E.T.

The Freakies were always on a quest to find the Freakies tree so they could eat Freakies cereal. The best one, for a nine-year-old girl anyway, was the pink female Freakie named Goody-Goody. I only pulled one of those from the box. Ever.

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20th Century Nostalgia

A Dune Buggy and the Rock Flowers: Frustratingly Fun

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Some things involve equal parts frustration and fun. Two examples: 1)  writing deeply perceptive blog posts, and 2) the hot pink, plastic dune buggy I had as a kid. Measuring about eight inches from bumper to bumper, my all-plastic dune buggy had black tires, black bucket seats, and shiny silver headlights. I think it originally had a spoiler, too, but over time it and one of those headlights snapped off. I used the dune buggy when I played  with my Barbie dolls, but it wasn’t an actual Mattel product. Because of that, Barbies couldn’t fit inside it.

The buggy better accommodated my handful of Rock Flowers Dolls, bendy “Swinging, Singing” hippy-chick dolls also made by Mattel that were packaged with real 45-rpm records that played each respective doll’s pop song.   In the center of each record was a stand, into which you could place one of the doll’s legs,  and then watch her spin dizzily. With some twisting and shoving of their extremities, I could contort these smaller dolls into the dune buggy because they were more pliable than Barbies.

The Rock Flowers were ultra-cool, even after the record broke or was lost. They wore stretchy polyester outfits in bright, psychedelic, floral patterns, and they roamed in a pack five or six thick. One doll, Lilac, sported long, sleek, light brown hair, a pink-orange-yellow pantsuit, and teeny lavender plastic sunglasses that were cruelly stitched into her scalp. Another doll was named Rosemary. She wore an afro hairstyle, iridescent orangey-pink sunglasses, and a neat-o dress with orange fringe and a tiered hem in a diamond shape.

Even though I could eventually maneuver the Rock Flowers into the dune buggy, they still weren’t a perfect fit. But I got over the frustration of that, and played with them anyway because it was fun. I remember pushing the dune buggy speeding across our olive green, sculpted carpet in our living room with a pair of rubbery Rock Flowers dolls bouncing along inside, ponytails jiggling.

Occasionally, one would spring out of the buggy, collide her skull into a table leg, and require an emergency trip to the hospital for outpatient brain surgery. Then she’d recover by taking a nap under a Kleenex blanket. Three seconds later, she’d reunite with her friends, and hit the dunes again.

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20th Century Nostalgia

A Ken Without His Mod Hair is Nothing

When I was about ten years old, I received a Mod Hair Ken doll for Christmas. Mod Hair Ken, Barbie’s macho boyfriend and one of the 1970’s most-hyped dolls, came with stick-on facial hair. There were mustaches, beards, sideburns, mutton chops, Fu Manchus.

The little — and I mean little —  hairpieces could be applied, removed, and reapplied only once or twice before the adhesive became less sticky. Then the pieces fell off Ken’s face onto the carpet as I carried him around. Then my mother accidentally vacuumed up the tiny pieces of fake hair because she thought they were tufts of cat fur or brownie crumbs.  With his hair hopelessly lost in the vacuum cleaner, my Mod Hair Ken suddenly became just a regular Ken.

I had really wanted a Mod Hair Ken, but without those little pieces of hair, what was the point?  Exactly two hours after unwrapping the doll, I threw him into my Barbie box and moved on to other things.

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