So Karen and I take a Vespa ride out to Lisbon, to get a good BBQ lunch. We get there just about the time the guy is opening up one of the big cookers, and we see a revolving rack set up with some of the most beautiful racks of ribs going around inside. He's basting them with some sause mixture, and he tells us that they're near done. By the time we grab a table outside in the shade, and get some drinks, he's carrying some inside.
Well, we get a half rack of ribs to share between the two of us, and I don't know when I've had such good BBQ. Actually I do, it was the last time I was there. Anyways, it's a small place and it's crowded, so the girl forgot to slice the ribs. Hey, any opportunity to cut, right? I take out the damascus peanut, and slice the ribs apart, not that it's much of a chore, the meat being as tender as it is after 6 hours slow cooking. I'm wiping the BBQ sauce off the peanut when the 50ish farmer type sitting with his wife next table over speaks up.
"I know that's a Case knife, but what the heck kind of blade is that, sir?" He asks me.
I hand over the now wiped off peanut for him to examine and he takes it carefully, turning it over in his hand, and looking at the blade very closely. He's never seen a damascus blade before, and I explain the Devin Thomas stuff to him. We talk knives some, and he reaches into his pocket and slowly takes out a very well seasoned Case Texas jack.The CV blades are very dark with patina of years, but razor sharp, and the bone scales are smoothed like no pocket worn I've ever seen come out of a box. The knife has been in long service but cared for, and the blades are a little thinner than they came from the factory with.
"My better half here" he gestures across the table at his wife, "gave me that pocket knife almost 20 years ago. It's been used some around the farm."
He's a local of the Lisbon area, and his family has been on the same farm now for 5 generations.
"My daddy carried a Case knife, and when I got old enough to do chores on the farm, he gave me a Case knife. When both my sons got old enough to do their share, I gave 'em both Case knives. I guess you could say I'm partial to them. But I ain't never seen one like your's. That's a pretty little thing. "
We talk some more, and he asks us where we're from, and we tell him down the road in Montgomery county. He tells us that the place we're in has the best BBQ in the whole central Maryland area. We have a nice lunch with good conversation about many things including knives. I start thinking about that Honda commercial they had way back in the 60's, about how you meet the nicest people on a Honda.
I think about eating great BBQ ribs and some great conversation about Case knives with a hard working farmer.
You meet the nicest people with a Case knife!
