Case kitchen knife winner.

J

jackknife

Joined
Oct 2, 2004
Messages
17,515
I mixed up the numbers in the hat, and Karen picked out number 51. Raymond 1000.

Ray, E-mail me.
 
Jackknife:

I love your stories. I’m delighted to have won your giveaway. The email is on the way.

I have loved old stuff since I was growing up in the ‘50s. The old console radio in our basement, with a coil of barbed wire serving as an antenna. Record players in wooden cases, relics from my parent’s youth. WWII military surplus goodies. Breadboard radios assembled on real breadboards.

Even then I had the sense that the world was changing under my feet. That much of the good old stuff was vanishing beneath the rush of modern change. Admittedly, that process was a mixed bag. Even back then it was clear that it was a win-some, loose-some proposition. The old metal toy cars and trucks looked better to me than the modern plastic ones. On the other hand, I listened to The Shadow on the radio, but I also enjoyed that newfangled TV. I never rode in a car that required somebody to use a starter crank, though I learned how to grasp one without leaving your thumb in the way of a bone-breaking kickback. I never rode in a car for which tire irons and extra inner tubes were standard, since blow outs were guaranteed. Some things do get better with time. (And steel belter radials were still in the future.)

I loved the flavor of the old stuff. Things made simply, of metal and wood and cloth, without a lot of plastics and electronics. I still own a giant hacksaw that the family used to butcher a hog or a side of beef. I still have my maternal Grandfather’s sausage maker. We had a cast iron stand in the basement, which held cobbler’s lasts of various sizes. Dad says Sears used to sell them. During the depression it was cheaper to mend your old shoes than to buy new ones. You can’t do that with today’s Nikes.

My dad was both a carpenter and a contractor. Small wonder, since his father was one before him, and Grandpa learned the trade from his uncle. Our garage was full of old fashioned construction tools. I learned to use them starting at age seven. Nailing the subfloor down, toe nailing the bottoms of each stud in a framed wall. Pushing an idiot stick. Using a framing square and Skillsaw. Hanging doors with brace and bit, chisels and a Yankee screwdriver. There was this weird looking long blade with a mushroom head and an offset handle, designed to pull nails when removing slate shingles. I used to brandish it and pretend it was a sword. Hydraulic jacks we used to lift and level old houses. I don’t know how many people are still around who actually carried bricks and mortar in a hod. I did. I mixed the cement in a mortar box too, using one of those big hoes with two holes in the blade.

I own and treasure some knives of similar construction to your set. Knives made by Old Hickory, Harvard Cutlery, and Gerber before the Fiskars buy out. Not to mention a few knives of similar construction, part of a set my Dad made for Mom, when he was a machinist’s mate on a destroyer escort during the Hitler war. All this is by way of assuring you that your knives will be welcomed and esteemed.

Thanks again.

Raymond
 
Hey Jack, Great give away! Thanks for the free pull. And congrats to you Raymond, By the looks of your post the knives are going to a very appreciative new home. aloha, mike
 
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