Life seems to be made of those moments where the lightbulb goes off over your head. You get the sudden insight, usually too late to avoid large sums of money or time spent on something. An insight that blows away the mists and fog that affect judgment. Like the sudden epiphany that you're being conned, and you really don't need that item the salesman is pushing with the one year of no interest.
Like SAK's.
I started out knife life with a Boy Scout knife dad gave me in the occasion I joined a local Boy Scout troop. In my pre-teen years and on, I got used to having a few tools on my pocket knife. In truth, it was handy as all heck. Then I enlisted in the army and they, in essence, gave me a Boy Scout knife. The famed M-L-K-808, also known as the 'demo' knife because they were in most the demo kits. Simple an all stainless steel U.S. made Pioneer like knife. It served me well and did everything needed.
Then, somewhere along the way I became a knife nut. It didn't start that way, but I saw and handled a Randall knife. Then I had to have a Randall. Then I got another Randall. Then suddenly my boy scout knife didn't seem enough, so I got a Buck 110 to go only belt. Out of the army I got off the beam, chasing the grail knife, the next shiny object of my cult worship obsession. Other custom knifes, all kinds of pocket knives like sodbusters, stockmen, barrows. Oh I still had a SAK around. Just too handy to leave home, but it was regulated to the pack, while the more glorious knives filled the bill. Of course I found myself going into my pack to get the SAK very often.
But then I woke up. It was one of those cartoon moments where the lightbulb goes off over the characters head. In this case the character was me. It was like coming out of a temporary insanity or fever, and looking around wondering where the hell am I and how did I get here? Somehow, I had forsaken all the common sense wisdom my dad, scoutmaster, Uncles, had taught me. It made me look back on years of experience and realize that had never used those big heavy choppers, or expensive knives for much that my old Camillus demo knife or pioneer would have done. In fact, I never had one unexpected problem that the SAK didn't handle. Backpackingtrips up and down the Appalachian Trail, canoe camping, kayak camping, whatever, the SAK was the star. In fact, because of some old service injuries, most the time I left the big heavy stuff home because I was doing semi ultralight backpacking. Hard to go with a 40 pound pack when your limping down the trail on a cane. Had to get the pack weight down to 25 pounds if not less. I did backpacking trips with just a SAK, dealt with a broken down motorscooter on a deserted dirt road in the middle nowhere, a trolling motor on a canoe at the far end of a long and winding lake that had the control come apart, dealing with my friends wife breaking an ankle a winter morning hike in the snow and making a litter to carry her out on with an old pioneer. Looking back on it, the Randall's and other high end knives didn't do jack. It was like 1989 or 90 that I sold off all my customs and high end knives. But I kept the Opinels, a few of my old traditional pocket knives, and never looked back and carried mostly a SAK of some kind. A tinker, my old war horse Wenger SI or beat up old red pioneer with the old cross.
Now, as a bonafide old fart, a certified member of the white beard brigade, I've had yet another epiphany. I left Texas on our visit to the daughter's family here in Mission Viejo California with nothing but a classic, the Wenger SI, and a Leatherman squirt. I didn't take any of my 'other' knives like my Opinel's, the Christy, the Schrade, for a reason. I've reached the mind state now, that I don't really need anything but a SAK or small multitool. If I need more knife than a SAK will give me, maybe it time I took a lesson form those jungle guides we had on that trip we took in the Costa Rica rain forest many years ago. They all carried a small machete in a leather sheath and a SAK in a belt pouch with a Bic lighter. The machete handled all the heavy duty use around camp, and the small jobs got done with a SAK. It worked for them very well.
I think when I get home, I will do a final downsize, and just get rid of all non SAK pocket knives.
