I've lost that lovin' feelin'.....

Moosez45

Moosez45

Custom Antlers, Factory Knives...
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I just took a trip to the cabinet that I keep my knives in. As I often do, I looked on in admiration, plucked a few choices from the cabinet, and took them to the bench for a quick edge touch up.

It got me to thinking about being a kid again. I spent quite a bit of my youth in the woods, and I came from a rather poor and humble beginnings. We's jus' po' hillbillies, ya'll.

I worked odd jobs to get the money to buy my gear, or at least the gear I couldn't make myself. The most enjoyable of those endeavors was finding a blade I wanted, that fit my needs, and nailing that price down. Then the work began.

Mowing yards, washing cars, sweeping up sidewalks/parking lots of gas stations, even collecting cans, whatever it took to get the dough to buy the knife.

And then, there was the moment when walking into the hardware store (that's where knives were bought when I was a kid, teh internets didn't exist), watching them take the knife out of the case, open up the box, checking it out, the slapping the money down on the counter, and walking out with my new, hard earned blade.

That first trip to the woods, be it hunting, fishing or camping, was magical. Using that new steel, seeing how all that hard work had paid off.

It was magical, and one of the things that endear me to knives.

Now, I buy at shows, internet, or from various places. My hard work is done in a factory, and "saving" up, isn't much of a chore anymore. I have a lot of knives, and I love them all. All are great examples of quality work, and do their job very well.

But I don't feel that magic that I did as a kid. Perhaps its the hard work, or the waiting, or the special feeling I got walking across the threshold of the local feed and seed.

Anyone else feel this way? Has growing up and older makin' you lose that feeling?

Moose
 
I have the opposite feeling. Now that I am older, with 2 young children, a wife, a business, and a home, finding any spare time at all to research and purchase a blade and actually use it in the woods is almost impossible.

When I do get that rare chance or infrequent package in the mail I "feel like a kid again."
 
God I wish it did

I would save a bundle

My father left when I was 12--we had to go on food stamps--so I know poor

However--I still love opening the box of the latest knife I get

I look forward to the testing of it and how I will re-sell it to get the next one

I'm not so much addicted to knives as much as getting new ones(which means I have to sell or trade off the older ones)
 
Good post Mooseness. I am a lot more excited about some purchases than others. I still get that same feeling about certain knives, but I can't predict which ones it will be. It has to do with when it shows up in my hand. If it feels a certain way, has a certain weight and cuts a certain way I get pumped. Sometimes I'll buy a knife and it just doesn't do it for me. I'll put it in a box. It has happened a few times where I would be going through the box and I would find that knife, use it, and all of a sudden I was excited about it. Happened today with a BHK knife.
 
Truth be told, I still kinda get that feeling. Not with knives but with firearms. I have my bases covered when it comes to guns but there is always that desire to try something new or get something completely useless. To this day I still have to pinch pennies and maybe do a side job or two to acquire that new firearm.

I have a new DeSantis holster in the mail and it should be here tomorrow. I'm a little giddy.

Suppose I'm just lucky that way. :p Broke, but lucky.
 
Moosez45 said:
I just took a trip to the cabinet that I keep my knives in. As I often do, I looked on in admiration, plucked a few choices from the cabinet, and took them to the bench for a quick edge touch up.

It got me to thinking about being a kid again. I spent quite a bit of my youth in the woods, and I came from a rather poor and humble beginnings. We's jus' po' hillbillies, ya'll.

I worked odd jobs to get the money to buy my gear, or at least the gear I couldn't make myself. The most enjoyable of those endeavors was finding a blade I wanted, that fit my needs, and nailing that price down. Then the work began.

Mowing yards, washing cars, sweeping up sidewalks/parking lots of gas stations, even collecting cans, whatever it took to get the dough to buy the knife.

And then, there was the moment when walking into the hardware store (that's where knives were bought when I was a kid, teh internets didn't exist), watching them take the knife out of the case, open up the box, checking it out, the slapping the money down on the counter, and walking out with my new, hard earned blade.

That first trip to the woods, be it hunting, fishing or camping, was magical. Using that new steel, seeing how all that hard work had paid off.

It was magical, and one of the things that endear me to knives.

Now, I buy at shows, internet, or from various places. My hard work is done in a factory, and "saving" up, isn't much of a chore anymore. I have a lot of knives, and I love them all. All are great examples of quality work, and do their job very well.

But I don't feel that magic that I did as a kid. Perhaps its the hard work, or the waiting, or the special feeling I got walking across the threshold of the local feed and seed.

Anyone else feel this way? Has growing up and older makin' you lose that feeling?

Moose
Click to expand...

Nice post Moose. No. I haven't lost the magic. But it has waned and wavered over the years. I find that I get hard core into other interests which refocus my attention for a few years. My last bout was finding an old 1977 Kawasaki KZ B1 motorcycle in rough shape, stripping it down to the frame and rebuilding basicly all of it. She screamed like a banshee after being put back together. I even rebuilt the four pod rack of carbs. Then metal detecting for Fur Trade relics reawoke in me a desire to carry steel in the bush again. One spring,summer, fall I carried a BK-2 as a constant hip companion. Years before that in the far north I lugged my monstrous Becker Brute around. So lately I an trying out aspects of bushcraft or simply enjoying the outdoors and combining multiple interests at the same time. Maybe you are just at a temporary lower ebb of interest and it will come back after a rest. Knife interest has waned with me through the years but never really went away. The seasons of life I suppose.
 
It was like that with fishing gear for me. Saved what I could when I was 12 to buy my first fishing rod. It was a KAY-ma-part brand glass rod with a closed face reel. That was to replace a homemade rod cut from a silver maple branch. Was I ever proud of moving on up from that. Then I had to save up to buy some tackle and a lure.

My first bought knife was a medium Schrade stockman bought in 1984 to replace a homemade knife made from a broken hand held pruning clipper taken apart then sharpened up with a worn out file. It was much easier to EDC the Schrade. The clipper was like a prison knife, had the angled blade and full tang into the molded plastic grip. I made a sheath for it out of the leather off of a scrounged softball. I kept that old thing until one day it laid open my middle finger two inches long as I was being stupid....ten stitches and a nice numb finger now to remember that one, did it at work...bossman was not happy when he figured out what I had used to cut the flaps off a 50 lb. box of nails for retail by the pound. Got a good cussing and he recommended that I put the shank where he would never see it again if you follow me. Being older now I understand he had to deal with the work comp costs but he did run a dangerous business which was not my fault.
 
I still get excited waiting for my latest purchase to arrive in the mail. Being as I live in Canada I get to feel it longer than most.
 
I think I can relate :)

In the past few weeks I have been going through sealed containers of stuff I bought over the last ten years..some are jumbled boxes of stuff that I packed when I left at the begining of my least divorce almost 4 years ago. It took me until last April to have a good solid home so I am just now getting to unpacking "non essential" boxes.

I just found an old Schrade 2 blade folding knife- large model, I do not know its name. But the story goes- when I was 13yr old, I saw it at a neighborhood yard sale and run/walked 2 miles home to ask my Da for the money. I remember it being around 20.00. My birthday was coming so Da gave me the money and put the knife away until my birthday. I spent hours honing that knife ot a razor and used it in skinning quite a few deer we killed together. Two weeks ago I opened a box and found the belt sheath but not the knife, I was sure it got left behind and I would not see it again. Just a few days ago I opened a box and found it at the bottom, still a light coat of oil on the blade and still shaving sharp!!
Da died 11/21/2011, just a skosk over one year ago and finding that knife brought back all those memories. That knife is priceless.

I have plenty of higher value knives but nothing will replace the value that one has.

Bill
 
willseeyalater said:
It was like that with fishing gear for me.
Click to expand...

Funny, I get reminded of that when I dig through a storage tub and find one of my jig molds. I used to be so intensely into fishing that I actuallt kept a diary with weather conditions, fish caught and on what lures, what colour of lure etc. It got so that I lost so many hooks in the local river jigging for Walleye that I bought the jig molds, vinyl lure paint (it doesn't chip), etc. I used an old two coil hot plate in the back yard and melted down free lead wheel weights from a service station for the jig molds (you blacken the inside of the mold with a candle so that the lead doesn't stick). I used to buy rubber jig twister tails by the pound in bulk. That also waned through time, but came back again. Been thinking about doing some ice fishing for perch, Walleye or Whitefish lately. Bought a license again this past spring.
 
I don't get too giddy about knives anymore, get kind of excited when waiting for them to arrive but it soon fades. The last bit of longer term giddiness for me was rigging my kayak and Jon boat. Researching the types of rod holders, fish-finders, running wires drilling holes etc. The planning and research is more exciting for me. I grew up without much, had to work for what I got. I don't really need for much anymore even though I now have the means to buy whatever I want. Now with one baby and another on the way I pretty much just look forward to teaching them about the outdoors and the occasional hunt with my dad when I can get down that way. But material things definitely seemed more valuable back in the day when I would mow lawns and bale hay to buy them.
 
Moosez45 said:
I just took a trip to the cabinet that I keep my knives in. As I often do, I looked on in admiration, plucked a few choices from the cabinet, and took them to the bench for a quick edge touch up.

It got me to thinking about being a kid again. I spent quite a bit of my youth in the woods, and I came from a rather poor and humble beginnings. We's jus' po' hillbillies, ya'll.

I worked odd jobs to get the money to buy my gear, or at least the gear I couldn't make myself. The most enjoyable of those endeavors was finding a blade I wanted, that fit my needs, and nailing that price down. Then the work began.

Mowing yards, washing cars, sweeping up sidewalks/parking lots of gas stations, even collecting cans, whatever it took to get the dough to buy the knife.

And then, there was the moment when walking into the hardware store (that's where knives were bought when I was a kid, teh internets didn't exist), watching them take the knife out of the case, open up the box, checking it out, the slapping the money down on the counter, and walking out with my new, hard earned blade.

That first trip to the woods, be it hunting, fishing or camping, was magical. Using that new steel, seeing how all that hard work had paid off.

It was magical, and one of the things that endear me to knives.

Now, I buy at shows, internet, or from various places. My hard work is done in a factory, and "saving" up, isn't much of a chore anymore. I have a lot of knives, and I love them all. All are great examples of quality work, and do their job very well.

But I don't feel that magic that I did as a kid. Perhaps its the hard work, or the waiting, or the special feeling I got walking across the threshold of the local feed and seed.

Anyone else feel this way? Has growing up and older makin' you lose that feeling?

Moose
Click to expand...

Well...the days of buying decent knives at hardware stores are over, if what's available at local hardware stores is any indication as to how it is as a whole. There isn't the magic now that once existed in going out and mending fences, bailing hay, raking leaves, gathering pop bottles, and whatever to buy my own production knives at stores. But that magic has been replaced by the magic of meeting and befriending people who actually take blank pieces of steel and turn them into well made functional tools, and even more so by being able to have my own designs brought off of the paper and into my hands. I still get excited when the packages come just like I did as a kid when the clerk handed me the box. Yes the magic has changed...but still very much alive for me.
 
I have not bought a new knife in about three years. However, I can relate to that loving feeling. Last week I got in a big piece of S7 and my eyes just lit up thinking of the choppers and other large knives I have planned for it. Even yesterday it happened again when I got another piece of steel delivered. I think my UPS man thinks I am weird cause I get excited about a plain piece of "metal". Then the real love comes when I have the finished knife in hand. I just want to cut stuff with it.

Then comes the heartbreak when my wife tells me I have to get rid of it. That is sometime like the feeling when I would open a Christmas present and find socks or underwear :(
 
Effort certainly had a similar kind of effect on me. Availability used to be a huge problem here if one wanted anything decent. There were a couple of decent importers and a few brick stores that had stuff but on the whole one had to jump through a lot of hoops to get to the good stuff. Even stuff like SOG and Al Mar was tricky to get your hands on before buying. One of my favourite brick stores would have three of four of each but that was about it. And when I started collecting Seki Sogs I'd phone the store every Saturday in eager anticipation that they had taken delivery. My pestering could go on for a couple of months even though they had my number. I gave up on Blackjack after two for a similar reason. The same pattern applied to Spyderco when they started coming through, although to a lesser extent because they were folders and cheap, so vendors were more inclined to stock them and I managed to snag quite a few of those....................................................No doubt some of those were good knives, and good designs hold regardless of fad or trend, but conceptually I made much more of them than there was to them just because of the effort in securing them..............................................................For sure that wasn't the only factor that played them up above their station. I can think of all sorts of other factors that worked on me too: Fanciful and romanticized notions of “the one knife” that pecked away at the impressionable tender mind, fuelled by literature and movies. Simultaneously, I'm sure there was contamination from my growing sense of autonomy. No longer constrained to the weekender with anything longer having to be part of some formal group I'm sure some of that feeling of liberty rubbed off on the knives; as in “knives afforded power”, and better knives necessarily more power. There's a route to totems talismen and taboos. In the big scheme of things I was being a 'tard, I figure that's the way of things when you're small and before your critical faculties fully develop. It's all about the emotional feel good when you can't reason properly, and by golly it felt good.................................................................I'm not eager to try to recapture any of that and I'm glad its gone. Comfort that comes through ignorance or rudimentary emotional manipulation is a cold comfort at best. And as they say; one's mind, once expanded by an idea never goes back to its original dimensions, and that only cows are content.....................................................I don't believe I am any less enthusiastic about knives now as a consequence but I have very obviously traded some aspects for others. Not like I've ever been one like in the days of yore when folks thought knives could have supernatural properties, I've never been that thick, but I have bestowed virtues on them in excess of what any evidence would indicate as important. I'm still not comfortable knowing that I've done that even now because it so opposed to the way I go about stuff today. It's not like I think I'm immune to making mistakes these days, I bought a Chrysler Crossfire FFS, but I am much better at making judgements now I have stripped out all the romantic imagery of youth and replaced it with actually doing stuff. One can never escape all the tint in the lens but there's a lot less rose in mine than there was. It does make the subject much more dispassionate for me, sometimes awkward, and occasionally one can feel a nostalgic pang when confronted by a bit of information that doesn't sit well; “if I was a baby I could just love it”, but here and now I have to account for all the warts no matter how unpleasant................................................................Where that has left me I'm not sure. I doubt I'll ever collect knives again. I'm deprived of a sense of wonder about knives that I once had, they are simply things, built like this or that, that are good or bad for this or that. That makes for a colder world, but a more accurate mental model of the world, so I prefer it. I figure it also makes me a harder person for many to hold a decent discussion with about of the attributes that makes a knife useful. If you've got a knife you love you'll have a hard time selling it to me if it cuts like an inch thick pizza wheel even if you could Tarzan your way through an anvil with it, the imagery necessary to join in the circle jerk would be completely lost on me. How much you paid for it, or who made it, or what it was made from, just wouldn't mean a damn thing in the presence of that one over riding bit of information. Yeah, I'm out of love with all that, out of love like an ex-vegetarian that has discovered food. Good.
 
WILLIAM.M said:
God I wish it did

I would save a bundle
Click to expand...

Hear Hear!!!!!

I'm with William!

No I still enjoy it. Unfortunately.

However the first really good knife I got with my first really good summer job I still have.

A Buck 110 that I bought in 1975 for $25 at Fulks Sporting Goods in Dunbar WV!

In the 90's a friend was cutting rope with it and the blade snapped off.

Apparently for years it had a crack in the blade where it met the ricasso probably from abuse on my part.

I sent it back to Buck and told them no replacement if at all possible fix since I had gutted my first deer with it and carried it all thru High School and College, back when a big folder on your hip was a fashion statement in my neck of the woods.

By the way Buck replaced the blade and the blade was even the style of blade the 110 had on them back then.

Wonder what that $25 would be in today's dollars?

I remember buying Shotgun News because that was one of the only publications that had unusual knife ads but now with the net we are in the golden age of knives.

So no, still enjoy it.
 
hollowdweller said:
Wonder what that $25 would be in today's dollars?

... but now with the net...
Click to expand...

Used said net. One of the inflation calculators gave this answer:

What cost $25 in 1975 would cost $103.06 in 2011.

Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2011 and 1975,
they would cost you $25 and $5.72 respectively.
Click to expand...

;)
 
As a kid I would order catalogs by the dozens and then pour over them making list of gear I needed/wanted.. I never had enough money to get more than a couple things, but I would spend months comparing and refining my list. When I would finally get a new piece of gear I couldn't wait to get out on a camping or backpacking trip to try it out. My dad was into camping and hiking and we would go at least once a month and go to our family ranch at least a couple weekends a month. Now I have had 1 over night trip in the woods in the last 12 years..pathetic. I recently gathered all my knives up and was sad at how many were new and had never even been outside the house. Now I think knives are a catalyst for me to remember outdoor trips of the past.. Most times I look at a new knife now, I first think of how great it would be to use out in the woods, then I come back to reality and think about it sitting in my "knife drawer". Knives still excite me, but I have come to terms with the fact that I am not happy collecting them just to have them collect dust.
 
Moosez45 said:
Anyone else feel this way? Has growing up and older makin' you lose that feeling?
Click to expand...

Yep.

I am getting closer and closer to seeing any knife (or anything in life really) in it's simplest terms, its a tool - pointy steel with (insert handle material) slapped on. Or for example a gorgeous cabinet made from exotic hardwood, I am seeing it just as some wood nailed and glued together to form a storage unit.

It can be pretty depressing sometimes. Little to nothing seems to have any "magic" to it anymore. It seems that as I get older life becomes more "have to" rather than "want to".

Maybe I am just becoming more cynical.
 
Not me. Not yet, at least. Every knew knife I feel like a kid on Christmas. It's still just as satisfying as it always has been, if not more-so because they are mostly knives I thought I'd never be able to get. It's still a great feeling getting that package in the mail and taking out the EDC to open it and enjoy another new knife that I get to use.
 
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