When I was a small boy growing up, my grandfather gave me a small pocket knife (I would be maybe five years old)
he showed me how to whittle sticks, sometimes I would spend a whole day making a pointless little carving
more often than not it got whittled down to nothing. I treasured that pocket knife, and I took it everywhere with me, showing it off to my friends, showing them how I could cut string, carve bits of wood etc. As I got just a little older, maybe six or seven, my grandfather let me buy a sheath knife. Obviously he had to go into the shop with me
but back then I wasnt seen as a budding terrorist, or a kid with a problem, no, just a small boy who wanted to be just like his grandfather (he was the kind of man who always carried a pocket knife and a piece of string
).
It got to the point that every year when we had our annual seaside holiday, I would undoubtedly take my granddad for a stroll around the seaside shops looking to buy my next best knife. The types of shop were varied, some were paper shops (newsagents as they are known now), some were joke shops, curiosity shops, second hand shops etc. We didnt have Rambo knives back then, or anything that purported to be used to fight with, but just a decent selection of knives ranging from small single blade folders, up to the Bowie style sheath (camping) knives.
The funny thing is that I never remember being looked at strangely when I went in to buy any of the above, and I certainly dont remember a list of rules regarding length of blade, type of opener, name of knife etc etc etc As I grew older my interest in knives stayed with me, and my collection grew. I collected for different reasons, sometimes for the usefulness of a particular knife, sometimes for the beauty, maybe it had real horn slab grips, or mother of pearl just inexpensive little things, but which meant so much to me. It was more about the sharing of an interest with my granddad, and trying to be like him.
We are in a different age now, knife collectors are often viewed as oddballs, or worse, by people who have little or no interest in why we would want to make or collect such things. If a grandparent took a five year old into a shop to buy him a pocket knife, the media would have a field day as for letting the same small boy whittle away a piece of wood with his own pocket knife (even though mine never got really sharpened, and it had a rounded tip!), well, I dread to think how many charges could be laid down!!??
Instead we see the same boy settled down in front of a TV screen, either watching mindless drivel, or even worse, getting sucked into some computer game where the lines of reality and fiction are often not clear. Lifelike characters smashed, knifed, shot or torn apart, blood splattered corpses you get the idea.
Our world is a violent place, and it is of our own making. We do our best to avoid harm, and we try to protect our loved ones from the same. However, we cannot take away everything around us which maybe used as a weapon, This would be impractical, nay, impossible. It would only serve to obstruct ordinary folk in the day to day activities of their lives. A boy scout, camper, rancher or similar, should not have to worry about the legalities of carrying a sheathed knife about his person, or the length of the blade. A collector should not have to justify having a particular style or type of knife in his collection, and countless hours should not given over to deciding if a particular folder is legal, because the blade became a little loose, and swung out more freely than it should have done .. how pathetic, how pointless and how immaterial these arguments are. We need to address the problem at root, find out why there are so many would be killers, find out why we have gang culture, and near urban warfare. We should spend more time nurturing our youngsters, giving them positive joyful experiences, help them to identify right from wrong, reality from fiction, and reward their efforts when they get it right. It is as a youngster you are most impressionable, most vulnerable, most susceptible this is the time when you should be sheltered from harm, and taught right from wrong. It is far too late if you leave it till he becomes and adult, then try to run around taking all sharp pointy objects away from him!!! Pointless and impossible.
It got to the point that every year when we had our annual seaside holiday, I would undoubtedly take my granddad for a stroll around the seaside shops looking to buy my next best knife. The types of shop were varied, some were paper shops (newsagents as they are known now), some were joke shops, curiosity shops, second hand shops etc. We didnt have Rambo knives back then, or anything that purported to be used to fight with, but just a decent selection of knives ranging from small single blade folders, up to the Bowie style sheath (camping) knives.
The funny thing is that I never remember being looked at strangely when I went in to buy any of the above, and I certainly dont remember a list of rules regarding length of blade, type of opener, name of knife etc etc etc As I grew older my interest in knives stayed with me, and my collection grew. I collected for different reasons, sometimes for the usefulness of a particular knife, sometimes for the beauty, maybe it had real horn slab grips, or mother of pearl just inexpensive little things, but which meant so much to me. It was more about the sharing of an interest with my granddad, and trying to be like him.
We are in a different age now, knife collectors are often viewed as oddballs, or worse, by people who have little or no interest in why we would want to make or collect such things. If a grandparent took a five year old into a shop to buy him a pocket knife, the media would have a field day as for letting the same small boy whittle away a piece of wood with his own pocket knife (even though mine never got really sharpened, and it had a rounded tip!), well, I dread to think how many charges could be laid down!!??
Instead we see the same boy settled down in front of a TV screen, either watching mindless drivel, or even worse, getting sucked into some computer game where the lines of reality and fiction are often not clear. Lifelike characters smashed, knifed, shot or torn apart, blood splattered corpses you get the idea.
Our world is a violent place, and it is of our own making. We do our best to avoid harm, and we try to protect our loved ones from the same. However, we cannot take away everything around us which maybe used as a weapon, This would be impractical, nay, impossible. It would only serve to obstruct ordinary folk in the day to day activities of their lives. A boy scout, camper, rancher or similar, should not have to worry about the legalities of carrying a sheathed knife about his person, or the length of the blade. A collector should not have to justify having a particular style or type of knife in his collection, and countless hours should not given over to deciding if a particular folder is legal, because the blade became a little loose, and swung out more freely than it should have done .. how pathetic, how pointless and how immaterial these arguments are. We need to address the problem at root, find out why there are so many would be killers, find out why we have gang culture, and near urban warfare. We should spend more time nurturing our youngsters, giving them positive joyful experiences, help them to identify right from wrong, reality from fiction, and reward their efforts when they get it right. It is as a youngster you are most impressionable, most vulnerable, most susceptible this is the time when you should be sheltered from harm, and taught right from wrong. It is far too late if you leave it till he becomes and adult, then try to run around taking all sharp pointy objects away from him!!! Pointless and impossible.
