When I was around 11 or 12 a friend gave me my first fixed-blade, a small bowie knife with a black plastic handle, it was a prized possession. I carried that knife under my pant leg strapped to my calf in a sheath that I had made out of bicycle inner tube.
I was at the shore one day (San Diego), crawling around on a jetty made of rocks, trying to catch the crabs that lived there, when the knife fell out of the sheath and clattered down between the rocks.
I could see the knife, but to reach it I would have had to get down to the water line and basically lay down and shove my entire arm down into the rocks. The waves were crashing in, and I imagined myself slipping on the wet rocks, or getting knocked down by a wave and ending up in the Pacific, and drowning in the rough surf, so I made the decision to abandon the knife.
I thought about that knife for decades after. I agonized over the fact that I could see it, but not reach it. No one else was ever going to find it, so it remained there, stuck down in the rocks, slowly rusting away year after year. A trophy for the crabs.
I was at the shore one day (San Diego), crawling around on a jetty made of rocks, trying to catch the crabs that lived there, when the knife fell out of the sheath and clattered down between the rocks.
I could see the knife, but to reach it I would have had to get down to the water line and basically lay down and shove my entire arm down into the rocks. The waves were crashing in, and I imagined myself slipping on the wet rocks, or getting knocked down by a wave and ending up in the Pacific, and drowning in the rough surf, so I made the decision to abandon the knife.
I thought about that knife for decades after. I agonized over the fact that I could see it, but not reach it. No one else was ever going to find it, so it remained there, stuck down in the rocks, slowly rusting away year after year. A trophy for the crabs.
