Ahh, never mind, I figured it out...

Setting up the trickle charger is the first task task I ask of the DS1302, and I just needed to pull the reset line LOW first, before I yank it high and move the data.
All I was missing was "rst = 0" up front:

Code:
 
       rst = 0
       rst = 1

        'Set Battery charger on and set to "1 diode, 2Kohm"
        Shiftout IO, SCLK, LSBFIRST, [$90, %10100101]  ' Set charger   [$90, $A5] 
 
        RST = 0
Thanks again to everyone!

Steve