I can't really point to any one thing that got me interested in knives or traditional stuff, except that it was what surrounded me a kid. Every man I recall from my childhood had a knife on him, and all the stuff we used was all real material. Coats were made from real wool or leather. Tents were canvas, and cars were made of real steel. When you bought meat, you went to the butchers shop. You bought bread from the bakery, and a loaf weighed five pounds.
But it was knives that I saw in the hands of all my childhood heroes. My dad, Uncle Paul, granddad, Mr. Van, everyone who had pants on had a pocket knife in there some place. It was normal when a boy became of age, that the right of passage meant that a pocket knife was gifted when he was judged to be old enough to be responsible enough to handle it. It was actually outside the norm that a man did not have a pocket knife. Of course, that was then. But it was what I grew up with.
I guess if I had to name any commonalities. it would be that the men that I grew up around all had certain values and liked certain things. These things became in my mind the gold standard of what to have, just because my heroes all used them. Names like Case, Schrade, Camillus, Imperial, Hen and Rooster,(the real original ones by the Bertram boys,) and Boker, were what was considered a good knife. Carbon steel and bone, or stag if you spent enough, was a sort of standard. But the real influence was watching my dad deal with all kinds of stuff with the few items he always kept in hs pockets. He was an edc'er long before the term came about. The situations and things he got done with that little two inch blade amazed me. It was a life long lesson.
To this day, the old man's influence is felt, and I sometimes look at situations that leave me confused, and think, "what would dad do?" and somehow it all comes out okay. If I did have to point at one thing that was the influence that steered me to the traditional path and kept me there. I was tempted now and then by the so called 'new' stuff, but when I really compared it to what the old man carried, it all fell by the wayside. The thin flat ground blades just did wha they are suppose to do; cut.
I figured if the old stuff was good enough for the men I grew up admiring, then it was good enough of me. No mater if it was a simple two blade jack, a waxed cotton coat, an old well broken in brier pipe, or a shot of bourbon to sip on after a good meal. If there was any commonality between the men that mentored me in my formative years, it was a very defined set of values, of knowing what was right and wrong, and doing the right thing. You always did the right thing, even if it was going to be the more painful of the choices. When I look at some old well worn jack with the jigging almost gone from the scales, bladed worn down to the shadow of their former selves, I think of some gruff old time guy that looks a bit like Wilford Brimley, and knowing that he's gonna do the right thing. There was a code back then, and men lived by it. My granddad, Mr. Van, dad, all were cut from the same cloth.
So I guess the traditional pocket knife for me is a metaphor for the old times that are long gone, but fondly remembered.
e.e. cummings is my favorite poet.
