"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

Carl, good post about life. I appreciate the other comments too.

Thank you.

I don't know what happened here but I hope that Andi does come back to the forum.

Andi, I always enjoyed your posts. Thank you! You have a good name too. My late Dad's name was Andreas.

I do not have a lot to contribute knife wise but I LOVE what I own and use now.

My husband is still going to gift a few more knives.

He already got one new axe for Christmas and he may get another one.

We have been busy looking at property here in MT and online elsewhere.

He may retire next year but he is not positive about this.

Either way, he is picking up a couple of extra axes and downsizing in a few other things which I have already spoken about here and in other places.

I enjoy this section of the forum and I appreciate the kind, smart, and COOL people here.

I appreciate the other sections and many other people here too.

Carl, you wrote a good post in another section of the forum and I thank you for that story too.

It was about self defense.

Blessings to all of you and have an outstanding Sunday!

Cate
The BUCK fixed blade knife lady. See my profile.
 
I spent the early months of my existence listening to the capstan lathe my mother operated, the sound of drop-hammers ever-present. I was born in a hospital built and named for one of Steel City’s great cutlery magnates, its outer walls stained jet-black, like every other building in the town. Iron and steel on the wind all around. My earliest memories are infused with the smell of grease on hot machinery, in the air and on my father’s overalls. I learned to walk in the shadow of factories, spewing fire from chimneys stretching into the sky. The long hoot of factory whistles filled the streets with mucky-handed men in cloth caps, and women tightening head-scarves over soot-spoiled hair. I grew amid adult chatter about hacksaw blades and steel furnaces, old gaffers names repeated so often I thought they were family. Even Father Christmas came to the big factory, we’d walk through the works to the canteen deep in its bowels, for the annual kids party my dad and his workmates subscribed all year to pay for. Tools and knives were my toys, magnets and machine-counters, hammers and saws to build a model boat, a jack-knife in the pocket, a sheath knife on a snake belt. Cowboys and Indians on the bomb-sites, bows and arrows made in the woods, black bark stripped with Sheffield steel.

Today the factories are mostly gone, I root around the city’s old corners just to get a feint whiff of that smell I remember so well from my childhood. The buildings are clean, sand-blasted in the 70’s, or replaced altogether. Kids no longer roam the streets looking for wood for bonfires, playing splits with their jack-knives, knees covered in scabs from scrawming round bomb-sites. I touch the knife in my pocket, and it brings it all back.

 
If you want an axe that will outlast the next Ice Age, get an Estwing.

I don't like anything but a full sized axe myself. Smaller work I do with my hunting knife. I think it's a safer way to chop.

But that's a matter upon which reasonable women can disagree.

Oops. This was for Catherine.
 
Jack Black said:
I spent the early months of my existence listening to the capstan lathe my mother operated, the sound of drop-hammers ever-present. I was born in a hospital built and named for one of Steel City’s great cutlery magnates, its outer walls stained jet-black, like every other building in the town. Iron and steel on the wind all around. My earliest memories are infused with the smell of grease on hot machinery, in the air and on my father’s overalls. I learned to walk in the shadow of factories, spewing fire from chimneys stretching into the sky. The long hoot of factory whistles filled the streets with mucky-handed men in cloth caps, and women tightening head-scarves over soot-spoiled hair. I grew amid adult chatter about hacksaw blades and steel furnaces, old gaffers names repeated so often I thought they were family. Even Father Christmas came to the big factory, we’d walk through the works to the canteen deep in its bowels, for the annual kids party my dad and his workmates subscribed all year to pay for. Tools and knives were my toys, magnets and machine-counters, hammers and saws to build a model boat, a jack-knife in the pocket, a sheath knife on a snake belt. Cowboys and Indians on the bomb-sites, bows and arrows made in the woods, black bark stripped with Sheffield steel.

Today the factories are mostly gone, I root around the city’s old corners just to get a feint whiff of that smell I remember so well from my childhood. The buildings are clean, sand-blasted in the 70’s, or replaced altogether. Kids no longer roam the streets looking for wood for bonfires, playing splits with their jack-knives, knees covered in scabs from scrawming round bomb-sites. I touch the knife in my pocket, and it brings it all back.

Click to expand...

I read about Two Legged Parsers once. They were busy invading London.
 
I felt like I was there, Jack. Thanks for the memories! Well done!
 
Great post Jack:thumbup: I could see it in my mind. I have never experienced an area like that. I grew up amid small mountain farms and dirt roads.
 
Raymond1000 said:
I read about Two Legged Parsers once. They were busy invading London.
Click to expand...

LOL! :D Here's a pic of Stan Shaw wrestling with one he managed to tame ;) :thumbup:



Peregrin said:
I felt like I was there, Jack. Thanks for the memories! Well done!
Click to expand...

Thanks Gary :) :thumbup:

r redden said:
Great post Jack:thumbup: I could see it in my mind. I have never experienced an area like that. I grew up amid small mountain farms and dirt roads.
Click to expand...

Thanks Randy, must have been idyllic. Fortunately, I grew up on the west side of Sheffield, so as I grew older, the Peak District national park was just a short bus ride away, a great place to get the muck out of your lungs and clothes :)
 
A wonderful glimpse of the roots of Jack Black!
You are such an amazing scribe, Jack! We are blessed to have you!
 
waynorth said:
A wonderful glimpse of the roots of Jack Black!
You are such an amazing scribe, Jack! We are blessed to have you!
Click to expand...

Thanks for your very kind words Charlie :o :) I've not had much chance to post recently, but enjoyed reading the accounts other posters gave of how they got into traditional knives, just wanted to add my bit :) :thumbup:
 
Jack Black said:
Years ago, I knew a man who had a great interest in the Spanish Civil War. When he was young, he was lucky enough to be in a position to meet one of his heroes, a man called Miguel Garcia, who had spent 20 years in prison under Franco. Unfortunately, but somewhat typically, he got so drunk at the conference where Garcia was speaking that he behaved disgracefully and had to be carried out unconscious. As he was being carried out, Garcia, who was speaking at the time, dismissively remarked that he too had been like that when he was a young man. Having sobered up, the drunkard learned of the remark, and spent the rest of his life telling people that his hero, the great Miguel Garcia, had once likened him to himself. He took the comment to be a compliment! :D
Click to expand...

WHILE A STUDENT IN SCOTLAND, I HAD SHIPPED AS CHART BOY ABOARD A CLYDESIDE FREIGHTER WHICH LUGGED COAL TO ITALY AND BROUGHT BACK ORANGES FROM SPAIN TO BE USED IN THE MARMALADE FACTORIES OF DUNDEE…
I NOW DISCOVERED WHY THE ORANGES WERE DELIVERED IN STEEL DRUMS, FOR THE CAPTAIN DIRECTED THAT A HOSE BE THRUST DOWN INTO THE MEDITERANIAN WHERE THE WATER WAS CLEAR, THE ONDERED THE DECK HANDS, “KNOCK OUT THE BUNGS,” AND PRESENTLY ALL THE DRUMS WERE OPENED AND I SAW THAT THE ORANGES INSIDE HAD BEEN CUT IN HALF. THE RESULTING JUICE, OF COURSE, DID NOT FILL THE BARREL, AND THE EMPTY SPACE WAS NOW TO BE FILLED WITH SEA WATER.
“WHAT’S THE IDEA?” I ASKED.
“EVERYTHING SLOSHES BACK AND FORTH, ALL THE WAY HOME TO DUNDEE,” THE CAPTAIN SAID.
“TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT?”
“IT PREPARES THE RIND FOR MAKING MARMALADE.”
THERE WERE TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ABORD OUR SHIP. THE CAPTAIN HELD THAT THE ACTION OF SALT WATER ATE AWAY THE PULPY PART OF THE RIND AND LEFT THE SKIN TRANSLUCENT, AS REQUIRED IN THE BETTER BRANDS OF MARMALADE. THE PULP AND JUICE WOULD BE THROWN AWAY. “NONSENSE,” ONE OF THE DECK HANDS ARGUED. “EVERYTHING IN THAT BARREL IS MIXED WITH SUGAR AND THEN BOILED DOWN TO MAKE THE BITTERSWEET TASTE OF A TRUE DUNDEE MARMALADE. WITHOUT THE SALT WATER IT WOULDN’T BE WORTH A DAMN.”
[James Mitchener's trip was in 1932.)
 
Wild week. My dog wasn't sick. She had part of a cloth toy lodged in her intestine. She was at the animal emergency off-hours hospital Sunday morning. We didn't know what was wrong with her. Then we were at her vet all day Monday with IV fluids and anti-vomiting medicine. At a follow-up appointment Tuesday morning the vet said it was to be surgery right then and there because another xray showed what we hoped was poop had not moved. Dog came home Tuesday night dopey and has been pretty doped up since then. Vet was happy with everything Wednesday morning when she saw my dog. We will return in eight days to have the row of staples removed where the doc unzipped her belly from the sternum down. Thankfully we were attentive (my dog is a quiet and reserved dog) to my dog's behavior and corrected it in time. Today I can tell she's really getting back to being herself.

Heal well, my Dixie Mae. Heal well. You just make my life better since you're my best pal.
Dixie%2520Medium.JPG
 
Last edited:
Glad it turned out well for Dixie Mae, leghog. She's a fine looking dog.
 
Interesting stories of your pasts. Carl and Jack are such good writers that I almost feel what they must have felt in their youth - different as those times were for them.

My family had no tradition of pocket knives. My first real exposure was when my Dad brought home a knife for me from the factory he worked in (full time to supplement his meager pastor's salary). It was a Case Sodbuster, Jr. which I still have. It opened a whole new world for me. I had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way without a mentor: how to properly care for your knife because I put a big nick in the blade fooling around, how to keep your knife when I laid it down on the road while working on a friend's car and never found it (that was my first knife I bought for myself) and how to keep from seriously cutting yourself by watching what you are doing with your knife (that's one I'm still working on after 45 years or so). I've also learned a lot over the years on BladeForums and especially here in the Traditional segment.

Knives and coins, which I've also collected, added to and rooted my growing love of history. I feel connected to the past when I hold an old coin and wonder what history it was a part of; the same with knives. I have a couple of old scout knives that have spurred thoughts about whatever happened to those scouts of long ago. Many of the stories from people here on the porch are so valuable because of the memories imbedded in their use of knives.

I wax nostalgic (and probably boring). Take care.
 
We are getting ready to have a GAW to raise some funds for Bob Bendell (BigBiscuit). We have had several members to donate knives for this. I am waiting for a response from paypal to see if they will allow us to use their service for this. So it won't be considered a raffle we will not require a donation to win however this will be a fund raiser for our friend and as Peregrin put it fellow forumite during a very difficult time for him and his family. We have permission from the Mods and Spark as well as Bob and the ball is rolling. I hope to have this up and rolling by Wednesday. Be watching for this GAW in the giveaway forum and please consider donating as much as you can to help our fellow knife knut. Thanks to all ahead of time.
 
Raymond1000 said:
WHILE A STUDENT IN SCOTLAND, I HAD SHIPPED AS CHART BOY ABOARD A CLYDESIDE FREIGHTER WHICH LUGGED COAL TO ITALY AND BROUGHT BACK ORANGES FROM SPAIN TO BE USED IN THE MARMALADE FACTORIES OF DUNDEE…
I NOW DISCOVERED WHY THE ORANGES WERE DELIVERED IN STEEL DRUMS, FOR THE CAPTAIN DIRECTED THAT A HOSE BE THRUST DOWN INTO THE MEDITERANIAN WHERE THE WATER WAS CLEAR, THE ONDERED THE DECK HANDS, “KNOCK OUT THE BUNGS,” AND PRESENTLY ALL THE DRUMS WERE OPENED AND I SAW THAT THE ORANGES INSIDE HAD BEEN CUT IN HALF. THE RESULTING JUICE, OF COURSE, DID NOT FILL THE BARREL, AND THE EMPTY SPACE WAS NOW TO BE FILLED WITH SEA WATER.
“WHAT’S THE IDEA?” I ASKED.
“EVERYTHING SLOSHES BACK AND FORTH, ALL THE WAY HOME TO DUNDEE,” THE CAPTAIN SAID.
“TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT?”
“IT PREPARES THE RIND FOR MAKING MARMALADE.”
THERE WERE TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ABORD OUR SHIP. THE CAPTAIN HELD THAT THE ACTION OF SALT WATER ATE AWAY THE PULPY PART OF THE RIND AND LEFT THE SKIN TRANSLUCENT, AS REQUIRED IN THE BETTER BRANDS OF MARMALADE. THE PULP AND JUICE WOULD BE THROWN AWAY. “NONSENSE,” ONE OF THE DECK HANDS ARGUED. “EVERYTHING IN THAT BARREL IS MIXED WITH SUGAR AND THEN BOILED DOWN TO MAKE THE BITTERSWEET TASTE OF A TRUE DUNDEE MARMALADE. WITHOUT THE SALT WATER IT WOULDN’T BE WORTH A DAMN.”
[James Mitchener's trip was in 1932.)
Click to expand...
Now I know why I could never do with orange preserve! :grumpy:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top