Timeless timer

From way back when I was a kid (think no television, 17-cent gasoline) I can remember the wind-up kitchen timer that Mom used, a Minute Minder. It was so neat because the knob you turned to set it was shaped like a rocket ship! Wow! On a kitchen timer!

After the initial excitement passed, I started to wonder about the knob's shape. A rocket? That seems kind of weird. Does it imply speed? Fast cooking without a microwave? Its hot exhaust turns your kitchen range into a convection oven? Just about the only real rockets in those days were the V-2s the Nazis shot at the Brits. That's a pretty scary thing to put on a kitchen timer! Of course there were the fictional rockets of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. But comparing a cooking aid to a bunch of adventurous space jockeys doesn't make too much sense, either.

I still haven't figured it out. Regardless, what's most remarkable is that the Minute Minder is still to be found in stores! With the same rocket-shaped knob, the same clunky mechanical tic-toc-tic-toc sound and the single one-quarter-note-off-key DING when your time is up. Amazing.