Knives:
Somehow, I ended up with this weird little thing:
THANK YOU,
Campbellclanman
!!! Duncan surprised me with the knife, and I am thrilled to have it here with me now. The combination of a favorite pattern + Duncan's kindness + Story (the elusive Unicorn, and What Went Wrong) makes this a special knife indeed.
--//--
... One thing I enjoy noting for myself, and recognizing in others, is how I can see new-to-me patterns/knives, appreciate them, and walk away-- and how others draw me to them, BOOM.
Or, how I ended up with a Pony Jack:
(We ate an apple together in Titusville.)
I so love jack knives, but even so, this pattern didn't catch my attention in pictures here. In person? Oooh, la. Ebony, bolstered ends, all steel, a quintessential beckoner. My New Favorite Pocket Knife.
Finally, of Knives and the Man; a lifetime Highlight:
As many of you know, I often help Charlie (
waynorth
) bring the back labels of his SFOs to completion, reading over his prose and assisting however I can to make sure he's saying what he means to say-- and means what he's saying!!
This has occasioned multiple 11th-hour email flurries involving a wild variety of encumbering variables, including non-congruent time zones, painstaking clarifications (to ensure accuracy in the absence of tone and other context), sent emails that never arrive, un-openable attachments, etc.
The Bladesforums Barlows were in full production during the Rendezvous. Thursday night, I suddenly wondered to myself, "Wait, Charlie will have knives coming out as well. I wonder what he's done about the label?"
Friday morning, I arrived at the GEC factory to discover 1) the first of Charlie's barlows, hot off the cookie sheets-- they were a'comin'! and 2) Charlie, sitting at his knife display surrounded by passersby, furiously scribbling on a clipboard holding unlined paper-- his label, due NOW.
He finished up his thoughts and handed the clipboard over to me. I sat in the hallways of GEC, surrounded by passersby, and wrote out the label once, conferred with Charlie, wrote it out again, checked with Charlie, then wrote it out one last time to (hopefully!) remove any confusion due to handwritten vs. typed text. We then walked the final version over to the correct office and person at GEC, and soon enough the actual label was printed and DONE.
... I cannot tell you how much this experience means to me. After all the years of emails, any one of the following would have made an impact, but to have them at work at the same time?!
Charlie and I were together
at the GEC Factory
while the knives in question were being produced
and we wrote out the label and its revisions long-hand, kickin' it old school
and could ask and answer and clarify questions in real time
and we handed in the label together to the person who actually prints them
and got to see the finished result almost immediately
Oh, my little heart.
I am grateful for technology, for email, and for .pdf documents that preserve formatting, but there is something personal, direct, and deeply moving about putting pen to paper-- an engagement, an investment, an oh-so-fitting culmination of a lot of work and words.
I am
especially grateful to Charlie for including me, and for his generosity throughout.
To engage this process with Charlie in that setting...?
More than I could have known to ask for; timeless good.
Thank you, Charlie.
~ P.
No greater love hath a man than to lay down his knife for his friend 
Those knives are absolute beauties too my friend 
