A realization

[Rsmith_77]

I have spent like 15 years on and off of this forum. Learning about knives, knives popular in other countries and other cultures
I never really felt like I had a knife that represented my upbringing and my culture (I'll get to this, this is my failing).

I read about the stockman and trappers of the American west
Jackknife's peanuts and err jackknives of the Maryland waterways
The resolzas of Mediterranean cultures
The lambsfoot of the English workingman

Etc etc

And I think something finally clicked. It's not that my upbringing didn't have knives, it's just that I was too young and dumb to really pay attention. Growing up in western New York in the 80s and 90s I was enthralled with the rambo knives, the ww2 daggers and other flashy weapons that were completely impractical for anyones day to day life. So I just mentally blew off what was actually happening around me.

But I DID notice, even if I didn't pay attention
The younger men often carried either a smaller stockman (like 3 1/4") or their buck 110s. Cause my neck of the woods was definitely farm country (dairy farms) and a big hunting area for turkey and white tail deer.

And the "old men" (funny how that number keeps changing as one also gets older) always somehow seemed to have a small pen knife in their pockets.

My father never really carried a knife, but then he was a New York State corrections officer and they probably had real restrictive rules about that sort of thing (he also never brought his revolver home and left it in his locker at work..probably because he knew he had two bonehead sons at home)
But I clearly remember him using a p38 on his keyring for most cutting tasks.

But my grandfathers? Pen knives
No idea what brand or manufacture, but I distinctly recall the small (probably 3" or less) with two small blades on opposite ends.

As a child I did a lot of camping and cub scouts and I was gifted more than one small stockman, but I didn't appreciate them or understand them. I had more than one knife either broken or confiscated because I would open all 3 blades and try and throw them and stick them into wooden doors or trees.

I dunno, this is probably a silly Sunday reminiscing session. Thinking about my father and my childhood while I been cleaning and sharpening knives that I have left neglected in my drawer entirely too long
But it seemed a relevant realization for this forum and I thought I would share

I also just finished sharpening and oiling a camillus manufactured buck 303
And it kind of struck some memories I had forgotten about my childhood.

Oh and as an edit
I should say as young men (kids really) I should have said small stockman and camp knives to include victorinox tinkers and recruits and such.

 

[Blues]

My maternal grandfather was a machinist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He's the one that got me started with knives when I was about five or six.

Always had a pen knife in his pocket, nothing fancy. Imperial, Utica, and such. I can't recall ever seeing larger knives outside the kitchen.

For reference, he passed in February, 1962...so it's been a good while, though he's with me daily, as is the love of knives he fostered in me.

 

[tongueriver]

I can't remember being so young that I wasn't aware of the knives always there being used. Three generations here-- Grandpa's (1876-1970), Dad's (1914-1992) and mine.

 

[Rsmith_77]

Well I'm glad you had that experience

I must admit that the failing must have been mine.
I was interested in what I was interested in and oblivious to what I wasn't.

Doesn't make me right
Just something that I realized

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

It occurred to me, in reading your post, that maybe my preference for stockman patterns in adulthood might've originally been 'imprinted' upon me by what might've been my first handling of a pocket knife my father showed to me when I was a kid. He had three old, unbranded pocket knives with what I assume were celluloid covers. Two of them were very brightly colored and also showed, if I recall, some significant rust. The third one wasn't as brightly colored, but in sort of a pea-green swirl pattern. It wasn't rusted at all. Dad had showed all three of them to me when I was in my pre-teens. He'd already had them for years - they looked 'old' to me even back in the late 1960s or early '70s when I first saw them. Some years later, when I was in my teens, he gave me the green-handled one. And at some point, the other two knives apparently went away somewhere, unless perhaps he just hid them away. I suspect he might've tossed them out for the rusting issues, as I've assumed their celluloid covers probably outgassed and ruined them. Dad passed away 7 years ago, and the family still hasn't rummaged through his belongings. So I don't know for certain if maybe we'll see those other two ever again.

 

[Rsmith_77]

I think you're right
I think I have preferences that never made sense but do now.

Like I prefer square bolstered stockman over round bolstered versions. No idea why, but thinking back all the ones we had were squared
I know I don't really care for stockman's with proud sheepsfoot blades (they are noticeably less comfortable to use) but many of the smaller ones (like this 303) have much lower seated sheepsfoot blades than say the old timer 8OT or the buck 301.

This is weird

 

[yablanowitz]

One theory I read (and subscribe to) said they left that sheepsfoot proud so it could be pinched open even with gloves on, since it was the "work blade" of the stockman. I certainly use it the most on mine. That said, I generally grind down the kick to lower the tip, since I don't work in gloves often.

 

[tongueriver]

Those sheepsfoot blades are so incredibly useful and so easy to sharpen that the afficionados and workers have re-engineered them slightly and now they are the same thing, functionally, but are called lambsfeet, boxcutters and wharncliffes. There is one called a dynamite knife with four sheepsfeet! Way cool. Another variation is the florist knife which exists (existed) in a few forms.

 

[jackknife]

I dunno, this is probably a silly Sunday reminiscing session. Thinking about my father and my childhood while I been cleaning and sharpening knives that I have left neglected in my drawer entirely too long
But it seemed a relevant realization for this forum and I thought I would share

I don't think there is any such thing as silly reminiscing. Only by looking back on our life experience do we learn and move forward. The young pups learn by watching the old dogs, so what we witnessed as pups ourselves should be teaching moments. Our reminiscing is our brains going back over data and re-evaluating what we know from that experience. Sometimes we go astray, and it takes some re-evaluation and maybe some reminiscing to re-align and reset our thoughts. Lord knows I've done a lot of reseting in my life, like when I realized the old men back when did know better than us because of their long life's experience. They found out before we came along, what actually worked best for them and what they were doing, and where they were doing it.

Only now in my red giant stage of life, do I realize how much the old man was right about so much.

 

[Rookie82]

Here in northwestern PA (rural farm country), nearly all the older generation and farmers daily carry small/medium stockmans, trappers, whittlers, etc. Mostly Case, Queen, and Schrade, all under 4 inch long. Occassionaly I would see a Buck 100. But the only time I remember seeing someone have a large coke bottle, or folding hunter pattern was in hunting season, carried for gutting a deer.