Friday, August 10, 2012

Lookin' back on a life and a knife...

It's been a little over a year since my dad passed, and I was looking at his old knife hanging on the wall of the gun room the other night.  That knife has been around since I can remember, even had my backside tenderized once or twice for touching it without permission by the time I was five.


It's nothing really special, just a Western Knife Company bowie-style hunting knife with a stacked leather handle and a leather sheath... both of which are showing wear and age.  The blade is now dirty and dull after spending the last few years of my Pa's life opening envelopes, packages, cleaning the bottoms of his shoes, and whatever else old retired knives do when they're not stored away or lost.


I thought about restoring it, but each mark and scratch, the torn leather sheath are part of it's character.  It's not an expensive knife, but it's worth a lot to me and works far better than a scrapbook for remembering my past.  You can see marks and dents on the end of the handle where it was used to pound tent stakes while camping in the summer or at Boy Scouts.  No... polishing up this knife and replacing the stacked leather handle just won't do... you can't cover up it's life with my dad.


My first knife was a little, cheap pocket-folder from the local hardware store that I promptly lost a week or two after getting it at the age of seven or so. It later turned up in a load of laundry resulting in another tenderized backside.  I still have the Sabre camping knife I was given for daily chores, camping, carving, and opening cans.  I used to hang it on the metal clip attached to those camper shorts and pants we wore as kids before all the new cargo pants and tactical clothing became all the rage.


One of my favorite knives was purchased with some birthday money and earnings from farming when I was fifteen... a Buck 110 Folding Hunter with finger grooves.  The knife rode shotgun with me every day in it's leather belt sheath for better than fifteen years.  It loves to go hunting, holds a great edge and can make short work of field dressing a deer.  I still carry it while hunting and on other occasions.  Heck, it even went on my first date with a hot redhead who later became my wife.  We've been together now for over thirty years... the Buck and me... the wife and I are getting close to twenty-five years.


These days I can usually be found carrying three knives... a little Leatherman Style multi-tool on my key-chain, a MiniBuck in my pocket that has been carried so many years that the texture and "Buck" are nearly worn smooth from moving around in my front pocket, and clip knife in my right front pocket.


My current clip knife is a Buck Bones with a tanto-style blade.  This knife was much less expensive than my Benchmade Griptilian which went AWOL last year.  So far, the Buck Bones has held it's edge well, flips and locks open easily, and I really like the tanto-style blade for an everyday carry knife.  We'll see how it holds out as clip knives and I seem to have short relationships.  Yeah, I know I'm partial to Buck Knives, but they're American-made and owned by a Christian family who still drop John 3:16 into the instruction sheet shipped with each knife.

The old Buck 110 Folding Hunter isn't tacticool enough these days for a lot of folks, but he and I have been through a lot together... we're both showing some wear and have a few marks we've aquired climbing up the learning curve of life, but it's still my favorite knife. 

Someday, maybe my daughter will thinking about me when she looks at that old Buck knife, just... Lookin' back on a life and a knife...

So what's your favorite knife in life so far?

15 comments:

  1. Mine has to be the little Case Pocket knife my Father gave me so long ago. A double XX. I cherish it.

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    1. @Keads... Case knives are terrific... I have a friend with an extensive collection...

      Dann in Ohio

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  2. I like the Columbia River M16 for a pocket clip

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  3. Has to be the Ka-bar pilots survival knife grandpa carried on Iwo. I got it the week before I went into the service at 18.

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    1. @dakota5... how cool, always wanted a Ka-Bar Marine knife... may still have to pick one up...

      Dann in Ohio

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  4. Used to be a big fan of Spydercos, carried a clip one in my pocket for a good portion of my Navy days....well, carried several, since the handle and clip were plastic, I've lost more than one out hiking "off the trail". I still have a Gerber knife (couldn't tell you the name) and multitool that I carried on my "bat-belt" while in uniform, and still carry one of their multitools to this day. The pocket knife has been replaced by a Gerber clip, I have two, one for work and one for "regular" clothes. Their metal clips haven't failed me yet! I've still got a couple of old Buck knives from my Boy Scout days, they're in various strategic locations, ie, in a toolbag on my workbench. LOL

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    1. @Rabid... I like Spyderco knives, but they don't like me... they always seem to get lost...

      Dann in Ohio

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    2. Yeah, I loved the extra large hole they put in the blade to make it easier to open one-handed. They took and held an edge really well, but that dang clip...

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  5. I've always thought that the gift of a knife to a son or to a father can be one of the most meaningful of gifts.

    Nice post.

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    1. @Matt... I'm glad to have dad's knife... I hae two I'll pass onto my daughter someday...

      Dann in Ohio

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  6. I have never seen knives like this before.i think it is best to give some one.
    Guns

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  7. I don't have any real heirlooms. I refer to it as 'lost in the flood' to explain how the shoals in life's journey can sometimes seperate us from the objects that have so much meaning. But that very lack motivates me to create and keep safe some for those that follow me. I have this Buck that has my grandsons name all over it. He's seen it, touched it with wide eyed wonder and giggled with excitement when I told him it was going to be his one fine day. It's not the object, it's the memories they invoke.

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  8. I have a Buck Folding Hunter 110 but without the finger grooves. I bought it back in the 70s (oh man, has it been that long) as my camping knife for the Scouts.

    I carried it my pocket for many years after that before it finding newer and smaller knives.

    I still have that Buck and it still goes with me on camp outs.

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